You get the feeling that GNOD can achieve anything regardless of headcount or arsenal. The Salford lot expand and contract with members as the situation demands, ascending on hapless venues like noise rock meteor showers, causing havoc for sound technicians as a two-piece (usually made up of ‘central’ members Paddy Shine and Chris Haslam), or stage-overspilling sextet.
Predictably, it doesn’t always translate to a solid recording, and an admittedly imperfect image of the GNOD experiences is captured in Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy. Consisting of hard-to-find live cuts from as far back as the Myspace era, the LP comes off a touch flawed in the way of a pirate DVD. The sound can seem muddy in spots, particularly as GNOD’s MO is already a dirge of Krautrockian drones and foggy dub atmospherics, but it’s still loaded with the illicit thrill of having obtained something you shouldn’t have.
The twin giants of Easy to Build, ‘Deadbeatdisco!!!’ parts 1 and 2, are rapturously terrifying, an industrial grade software reboot of Faust and Tony Conrad’s Outside the Dream Syndicate. While its ideal setting would be deep down in an underground squat party, even a cursory headphone listen can lead a listener to see the known and unknown universe hidden inside the discord of blaring trumpets and sounds born from teeming mounds of wires.
But make no mistake, Easy To Build, Hard to Destroy is still one for the card-carrying heads. First-time listeners would be better off dipping a toe into 2017’s Just Say No… or the underrated GNOD extracurricular LP Temple ov BBV for a more manageable dose of minimal, earth-shattering sludge rock. If you come away hankering for more questionable substances, it’s here if you need it.
