THE AMENTA: V01D

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  Add comments
Mar 082011
 

As a general proposition, I can only take industrial metal in small doses, but The Amenta‘s 2008 album n0n was such an extreme, brutal piece of mindfuckery that I couldn’t resist it, and still can’t. The band took elements of black metal and death metal and stewed it in a smoking vat of industrial rhythms and synthesized noise. The result was something cold, vicious, disgusting, nihilistic, raging, hate-fueled — and yet often as catchy as ebola in its rhythmic hooks and small infusions of melody.

Today, The Amenta have returned with an unusual “multi-media release” called V01D. There’s an audio component and a video component. The audio is a 16-track album mastered by Alan Douches consisting of one new song (the title track); six new “electronic experiments”; re-recorded versions of five songs from n0n and the band’s previous album Occasus (2004); and re-mix versions of four of those five previously released songs.

The video component includes professionally filmed and recorded clips of the band performing four songs live in Sydney, Australia, plus one music video for the song “Vermin”.

All of this — the 16-track album and the five videos — have been released as of today, and what’s even more unusual is that despite the obvious effort that went into creating this, The Amenta are making all of it available for free download at www.theamenta.com. In the band’s words, this is their “response to download culture” — which I guess is a way of saying, “our shit will be up on the web in no time anyway, so what the fuck?”

After the jump, we’ve got the disturbing music video for “Vermin” and the new song, which is a surprise, but a very fine one.

Before you watch this video, I think it may be helpful to see the lyrics to the song, so here they are:

Highly evolved?
Origin of the fucking slave
You are all voids
Comfortable null
You are animals
Who claim to be human
But you aren’t trying
To reach the ideal

You are a primitive design
Nothing but base urges
A fight or flee reflex
You are vermin
A creature of impulse
Fucking and feeding
There is only reaction

Divinity is nothing
But a yearning beast
A crude vessel
Desiring refinement
A primitive rat?
Or a refined beast?
All in the gutter
We search for stars

Nature cannot be rejected
Cloistered and denied
But it can be tempered
In every futile struggle
In everything out of reach
In every distant goal
There is something human

You are vermin
Nothing but a flawed
Base rat
An insect of
Insignificance
You don’t have what it takes
To rise
You are vermin

When it’s all so aimless
When there are no goals
When there it’s all just reaction
There is nothing human
When everything is thoughtless
When it’s all so aimless
When there are no goals
There is nothing human

Think
What do you consider important?
What are your goals?
Are you content?
You can choose
To be a pig in shit
Or something almost human

You are a primitive design
Nothing but base urges
A fight or flee reflex
You are vermin
A creature of impulse
Fucking and feeding
There is only reaction

You are vermin
Nothing but a flawed
Base rat
An insect of
Insignificance
You don’t have what it takes
To rise
You are vermin

Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Now, while you’ve got that bit of nastiness clawing at your head, how about following it up with this new song? It’s a bit of a surprise, but a very pleasant one. The industrial stylings are almost entirely missing. Instead, you get an anthemic keyboard melody, pummeling blast-beats and slashing guitars, agonizing rancid vocals — mixed with clean singing — and the overall effect of cascading walls of sound. It’s a terrific song.

[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/V01d.mp3|titles=The Amenta: V01d]

More data points: The album features guest appearances by the band’s Occasus-era vocalist Mark “Cesium 137” Bevan and former bass player Dale Harrison.  Also, be aware that the free download will only be available for one week, beginning today. I’m not clear what The Amenta plan to do with the music after that. For now and during the week to come, you can go get this box of demented, spiky, radioactive things for free at this location. You do have to provide a name, birthdate, location, and e-mail address to access the files.

And a question for you: As a genre, industrial metal is outside my knowledge comfort zone (though I’m not sure “industrial metal” is even a label that fits The Amenta very well). I can only tick off a handful of bands from memory whose music I know and like (eg, Ministry, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, Sybreed, Red Harvest, NIN, early Static-X — and now, as a result of Andy Synn’s post yesterday, some of the music from Myrkskog‘s first album). If you’re into this kind of music, what else would you recommend (the more extreme, the better)?

  59 Responses to “THE AMENTA: V01D”

  1. Niek says:
    March 8, 2011 at 3:54 am

    I’m a big fan of Mnemic. Not at all extreme, but catchy as fuck. The Danes tend to be good at it; there’s also Illdisposed, Smaxone, Scamp, and a fucklot more.

    The Amenta is very different from a what I’m used to as Industrial though. That thick Black Metal influence is the cause of that.

    Reply
  2. byrd36 says:
    March 8, 2011 at 4:20 am

    Give a listen to Tristwood. They’re on the more extreme side of industrial. http://deathmetalbaboon.com/tristwood

    I know it really isn’t your thing, but Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar has his best material. Maybe try the songs Irresponsible Hate Anthem, Little Horn or my most favorite, The Reflecting God.

    Reply
    • Islander says:
      March 8, 2011 at 4:32 am

      Tristwood: YES! YES! Downloading it now . . .
      Marilyn Manson: “The Reflecting God” is better than what I’ve heard before . . .

      Reply
      • byrd36 says:
        March 8, 2011 at 5:53 am

        Tristwood is fuckin’ sweet. According to what I’ve noticed on DMB sitestats only 3 or 4 people have clicked on through to the download. I don’t understand.

        The Amenta download is a little slow and I only got 4 performance vids, missing the Vermin music video.

        Reply
        • Niek says:
          March 8, 2011 at 6:13 am

          And counting though.

          Reply
        • Islander says:
          March 8, 2011 at 6:21 am

          The download links went live yesterday, despite the “official” March 8 release date, so I downloaded the audio files yesterday. Went pretty fast. I suspect their servers are getting hit hard today. I was deterred from downloading the videos yesterday because of the 192MB file size, but just did it — and now see that it only includes the four live clips.

          Reply
    • Phro says:
      March 8, 2011 at 6:20 am

      Holy fuck, Tristwood is fucking brutal!!!

      The intro for Distopia et Disturbia made me almost turn it off though…

      Reply
  3. Quigs says:
    March 8, 2011 at 6:11 am

    Personally, when I like to dabble in Industrial, but I only find myself listening to bits and pieces.

    Check out Scorngrain, not amazing, but good enough in bursts.

    I actually really a lot of The Berzerker’s material, that’s pretty extreme and blends a lot of Industrial elements.

    Have you listened to Turmion Katilot?

    Reply
  4. Phro says:
    March 8, 2011 at 6:19 am

    That video was…
    Well, it was exactly what I needed. 🙂
    Good find!

    Reply
  5. Andy Synn says:
    March 8, 2011 at 7:06 am

    I’ve got something slightly industrial and fucked up in the pipeline for a future Synn Report. Probably the one after next, if I ever get this next one finished!

    Reply
  6. .jh says:
    March 8, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    Listening to Vermin I’m not sure I’d classify this as industrial metal, I’m not sure what to call it. When I think of industrial I think of things like

    Mz 412 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr0K5chznJI
    Raison D’Être – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz15AKiKCAs
    Brighter Death Now – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jSYSodugeM

    Granted they are probably all a lot more industrial than metal, in the slightly more metal and less industrial you have

    Spektr (of best video ever fame) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itrRBaFWJEE

    Then in the slightly more weird category, you have stuff like this:

    Neo Inferno 262 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1dLg-KBOLY

    although I find them to have almost techno-y sounds to them (granted not the linked song so much)

    Now industrial metal isn’t really what I listen do, and with the exception of Spektr I don’t really listen to much of any of the bands above, I just happen to have a few Cold Meat Industry compilations lying around, so there might be better examples than what I’ve given here.

    Reply
    • Islander says:
      March 8, 2011 at 5:46 pm

      Sorry about the delay in your comment appearing. I had to approve it because of the number of links. I will write more later.

      Reply
    • Islander says:
      March 9, 2011 at 12:04 pm

      The Spektr song and video are stunning. Do you know if the video was made by the band or by the person who uploaded it?

      I like the Neo Inferno 262 song, too, though I thought it was less weird than the Spektr. On second thought, “weird” really isn’t the right word for the Spektr track. Maybe “intensely disturbing”?

      I still mean to check out the first 3 tracks in your comment.

      Reply
      • .jh says:
        March 10, 2011 at 9:18 pm

        The Spektr video is by the band. That song isn’t actually a song from the album, but I think it’s
        described as a companion song/video to the album. So it’s a separate video track on the CD.

        So when I made that post I was in a bit of a hurry and just picked the first Neo Inferno 262 song
        I found on youtube, this one might better describe what I meant to say above

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFHb7yaYaPA

        Reply
  7. chris says:
    March 9, 2011 at 12:28 am

    does anyone know who did the clean vocals for the new song? did not expect to hear anything like that from the amenta

    Reply
    • Islander says:
      March 9, 2011 at 12:40 am

      It surprised me, too. I’m assuming it’s Cain Cressall, who replaced Mark Bevan after n0n and who sings on the re-recorded tracks on this release.

      Reply
      • chris says:
        March 9, 2011 at 12:53 am

        thanks i thought it might either be Cain Cressall or Dan Quinlan because i read somewhere that Dan also did vocals i didnt think Cain would have the range but either way i never thought clean vocals would work in the amenta but they worked extremely well imo if they are used sparingly

        Reply
    • Islander says:
      March 9, 2011 at 12:45 am

      But, on the other hand, Mark Bevan is credited with guest vocals on this release — though I don’t know which songs he’s a part of — so I suppose it could be him?

      Reply

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