Painkiller – Execution Ground

November 15, 1994 • Subharmonic

Anyone about to listen to an album by John Zorn should know right away that they're going to get into something weird, and Execution Ground isn't an exception. Joining him is Mick Harris of Napalm Death fame, and right there should be an indication that it's going to be an interesting album.

In addition to the expected chaotic and noisy free jazz, much of the album instead revolves around an ambient dub sort of sound, created by some very solid dub-like drumming, repetitive bass lines, lots of sax soloing, and some really great ambient noises in the background. The atmosphere this all adds up to is really great: it's a huge, bleak sound, inspiring some sort of post-apocalyptic urban sci-fi setting, somehow. (Sort of like what the Blade Runner soundtrack would be like if Zorn composed it.) There are also some interspersed vocals, mostly tortured screaming and some chanting as well. It's all very creepy and often unsettling, but in a good way.

Because of this interesting mix of genres and sounds, Execution Ground manages to keep itself mostly interesting throughout its duration, despite it being so long. At about eighty-four minutes, there are always going to be parts where the music drags a bit and it is easy to lose interest. I can't say that doesn't happen here, but at least it doesn't happen as often as it could. For the first disc, Zorn sticks to the crazy nonsense soloing, but the bass and drums do a lot of different things: there's some straightforward dub beats, some hardcore/grindcore influenced riffing, some free improvisation, etc. The ambience and electronics are also produced very well; they usually follow the music pretty closely and it's obvious they weren't thrown in for atmosphere but rather used as an accompanying instrument, to great effect.

The second disc is pretty much all straight-up dark ambient with some background saxophoning and the occasional dub drum solo. It's hard to tell the difference between the two discs since the atmosphere, production, and composition is all very much the same, but it's good to hear these ambient remixes for a bit of a different spin on the first disc. It's a good way of keeping the album from sounding too stale and boring, and here it does a pretty good job at that.

I happen to like Execution Ground but I should warn that it is very much a niche album and most people would probably be turned off by any number of things about it, but it's an album that knows its purpose and accomplishes it pretty well, even if it is a little too long.

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