AllMusic
François Couture
Transforming from Seda E Marg to Sedaye Marg, the project of Tirdad C.K. gained in power of evocation. Frashogard, the first release of his label Coup d'Etat Communications, is a luscious platter of post-industrial noise, dark and pummeling. The track titles evoke events from the Iranian history of the last few decades. But this soundtrack could fit the history of any troubled nation. The music goes back to the roots of the industrial movement: the beat -- martial mid-tempo beats hammered on drums (both acoustic and electronic) processed to raise an apocalyptic Morse code message from every rhythmic figure. Waves of spitty electronics crash on Walls of Noise, each track offering a different assemblage, a different look at the darkness of the human heart and the despair it is responsible for. One thinks of Doc Wör Mirran's relentless pieces, of Merzbow's early cassettes, and of many other obscure names of the '80s cassette underground. Once in a while, a chant rises, a single voice or a chorus echoing through the battlefield, announcing a short respite . "Cinema Rex is Burning," "Operation Karbala Five" (which marks the beginning of the second-half of the album, after a pause of a few seconds), and the closing title track stand out. Fans of old-school industrial will be taken back to a time when the four-track tape recorder was the composing tool of choice. The approach is indeed dated, but Sedaye Marg managed to revisit the genre exactly for what it was, without nostalgia or kitsch. That may be where Frashogard's strength lies.
