Band:	Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire
Album:	Songs Of Ill Hope And Desperation
Style:	Grindcore
Release date:	June 08, 2010
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Teeth & Hair
02. Cloven
03. I Walked Away From The Human Race
04. Shat Out My Bones
05. Gold Frankincense & Myth
06. Recession
07. Piss
08. Bouquet Of Self Pity
09. Leather Hands
10. Made Of Coal
11. They Smeared Shit On Their Skin So They Could Blend In At Night
12. Empty
13. Remove The Light

Denver, Colorado's Ethan McCarthy is perhaps best known today for his work fronting the blackened sludge trio Primitive Man, and to a lesser extent Vermin Womb. But not too long ago, he was at the helm of another utter monstrosity: Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire.

Songs Of Ill Hope And Desperation serves as the second and final full length CTTTOAFF album before the group's breakup in 2013. While Ethan may be known today for more sludge and noise-oriented outputs, CTTTOAFF sat more firmly in the grindcore realm. This isn't to say, however, that it wasn't still highly dynamic or that it didn't feature hints of sounds that Ethan would experiment more with later. Indeed, by grind standards Songs Of Ill Hope And Desperation is a significantly unique listen, not only for its longer-than-average run time for the style (34 minutes) but also for its distinct infusion of doom and black metal techniques into its larger body. These are aspects of the songwriting that tend to come out on the longer tracks, as they allow more room for them to be fully fleshed out, but that still exert a pervasive influence across the entire composition. The relentless, skin tearing grind delivery gradually gives way here and there to more plodding, doom-oriented riffage, especially on "Gold Frankincense & Myth" or "Bouquet Of Self." And across all the tracks, whether during the slower or faster tempos, an underlying shade of treble-heavy, black metal type riffing holds all the seams together (see "Made Of Coal" especially).

One of the most enjoyable features of Songs Of Ill Hope And Desperation, aside from its particular "blackened doomgrind" personality, would have to be the production, particularly as it relates to the music outside of the guitar and vocal dimesion. Ethan has had a habit across his musical career of being in bands where he's the only guitarist, and CTTTOAFF may very well have been where this pattern started. The lack of a second guitarist inevitably allows more room for the rhythm section to really have their day and feel that much meatier and colossal in the overall mix, and here Zach Harlan and John Paul Damron must be applauded for holding everything on this album together with delicious, rumbling bass and thundering, intricate drum patterns, respectively. The inclination toward a strong, audible, and heavy-as-shit rhythm section would end up being a motif that would continue with Ethan's later work, especially Primitive Man, so it's important to note CTTTOAFF as perhaps having established this precedent.

Listening to Songs Of Ill Hope And Desperation, it's easy to establish a stylistic link between the music here and that which Ethan would end up doing a few years later. Primitive Man and Vermin Womb especially seem like natural continuations of the two predominant aspects of CTTTOAFF's personality: Primitive Man focusing more on the BM-laden doom approach, and Vermin Womb picking up where the violent grindcore machinations of CTTTOAFF left off. While both are similar in their own ways, CTTTOAFF still offers a unique listen in its own right for essentially merging these two sides of the coin together, the ferocious uptempo approach on the one hand and more slowly creeping, agonizing approach on the other. All in all, Songs Of Ill Hope And Desperation very well may have represented the band at its peak, and it still stands as a vital stepping stone in Ethan McCarthy's evolution as a composer.