At NCS, we do our best to cover a broad swath of metal, but there’s one genre we’ve almost completely ignored — that union of dubstep and death metal known as deathstep. There are reasons for that, principally because your humble author knows virtually fuck-all about the genre and has a low tolerance for electronica. I say “almost completely ignored” and “virtually fuck all” because once upon a time we did pay attention (here)Â to a remix by Cam Argon (Big Chocolate, Disfiguring the Goddess) of a Suicide Silence song. In addition, occasional NCS guest writer The Artist Formerly Known As Dan (who, by the way, needs to send me more posts!) provided this feature about dubstep, which included one of the deathstep tracks created by the Cam Argon-Mitch Lucker collaboration known as Commissioner.
Earlier this week, I got an e-mail from NCS reader and musician Ray Heberer (who has some big news on the way about several of his projects — but more on that later) suggesting that deathstep is worth more attention. As Ray pointed out, prototypes of the genre have been popping up with increasing frequency, but you won’t find much of it dating back more than a year — it may be the first new metal genre of this decade. Does that mean it’s worth anyone’s time? Well, that’s the question, innit?
I’m certainly not yet prepared to shower deathstep with accolades, and I have little doubt that metal elitists (which means about 99% of all metalheads) are or will be inclined to vomit all over the style at the slightest provocation. But while withholding judgment about the budding genre as a whole, I definitely am prepared to shower some accolades on one example of the genre that Ray turned me onto in his e-mail. It’s a full-length album — as far as I know, the first full-length deathstep production, period. Not only is it an album-length work, it’s one song — 39:54 in length — and it’s available for free download.
And, unexpectedly, it’s unusually good. Ray wrote that it may be a genre-defining piece of music, and he may be right. The musician goes by the name Switchup, the album is called Hell’s Symphony. (more after the jump . . .)
One problem with the song is that you really can’t develop an accurate appreciation for the music just by listening to part of it. It’s the old story of the blind man and the elephant. For example, if you were to listen to only the first two minutes, you’d turn this off immediately — I nearly did. It’s an intro that’s heavy on the clean singing and slow, melodic electronica. You might even turn it off even after hanging in there through the first five or six minutes. But the song builds. It’s a bit like a mountain road — there are twists and turns, ups and downs, but the general trajectory is upward, with increasing intensity and momentum. And so I liked the song more and more the further it climbed.
Is it metal? Well, for the vast majority of the time, the answer is definitely no — it’s much closer to dubstep and other forms of Electronic Dance Music most of the time. But with regularity, the shit takes a turn for the heavy that feels like someone teleported a black hole into your lower GI — massive bass drops, gut-sucking drum-and-bass, legit metal riffing, dragon belches of wobbling electronica, and bestial vocals.
Speaking of vocals, the song includes at least a dozen different styles — among them, clean singing (though thankfully not much of it), death-metal gutturals, paint-stripper shrieking, rap (again, thankfully not a lot), falsetto squealing, monastic-style medieval chorals, demonically grating whispers, and more. But as constantly changing as the vocals are, they got nothin’ on the instrumental work.
The song is constantly in motion, a thousand digital effects swirling, pulsing, and erupting in a way that makes that 39:54 length seem short. For me, at least after I got past the intro, I got sucked all the way in, in part because I was so curious about what was going to happen next — and next, and next. I find most electronic music to be monotonous and soulless, but I never got that feel from Hell’s Symphony. I didn’t love all of it, but I sure found more than enough to hook me all the way to the end — and then I listened to it again.
I suppose part of the reason I like this album is because I’m so fucking impressed with how much work it must have taken to put this kaleidoscopic soundscape together. It’s dense with sonic variety, and brainy in the way the rhythms and moods and melodies are constructed to morph and converge. The patterns change, they become chaotic, they fall back into thumping dancefloor raves, they take off in brief flights of surprisingly beautiful melody — and there’s virtually no repetition.
Some of you are going to think this is a pointless waste of your time, and some of you are going to find it an engrossing change of pace, with enough in common with metallic extremity to hold your interest all the way through. Which kind of listener will you be? Only one way to find out.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/20333538″]
Switchup is the stage name (at least in his deathstep incarnation) of one Robert Brooker who now resides in Los Gatos, California, though he was born and raised on the east coast. He claims to have a musical history rooted in metal, with more than 10 years experience as a guitarist. To find out more, Switchup’s facebook page is here. To download “Hell’s Symphony”, use the little black arrow in the Soundcloud player above, or visit Switchup’s Soundcloud page here.
Obviously, I’m expecting comments. In fact, I’ll be very surprised (and disappointed) if I don’t get some. So, let’s have it: fucking good pancake? or massive wall of penis?
22 Responses to “DEATHSTEP: FUCKING GOOD PANCAKE OR MASSIVE WALL OF PENIS?”
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Sounds just like dubstep to me lol
Kareem, do you know of any artists who you would classify as deathstep? (And that question is intended for other readers, too.)
Darkstep warrior is a good source to find deathstep! There’s Getter, Sadhu, 12 gauge, Trampa, Sponge Bandits, Bratkilla, Mantis, there’s a lot more but they’re a good starting point to find more!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MAyesHgzws
here’s a Mantis song with Fronz from Attila,
heres a real deathstep song https://soundcloud.com/dr-sicknasty/worship-death-step-vip
Pancake or penis, it never fails to amaze me just how many other genres and subgenres of music have been embraced/devoured/parasitized by metal. No other genre can boast the musical spectrum metal enjoys. And again whether you are a fan or not, it almost always works (at least from a “technical” standpoint). So kudos to metal for crushing and subjugating yet another inferior genre under its massive armored treads.
metal is definitely a sponge genre. If you mix metal and jazz, it becomes jazz metal, not metal jazz. We can see that neo-progressive rock is being absorbed into metal (think porcupine tree, the mars volta, etc.) And if a genre exists, you can be certain that there is a metal type of it, or at least a fusion genre with metal (as with deathstep).
By the way, a sort of “djentstep” prototype can be found in The Algorithm’s “Critical Error” album.
Funny you should mention The Algorithm. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow. 🙂
If you truly must listen to something like this, then listen to Igorrr instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWca1X7nFGo
First of all, sorry for the lack of posts – the Cube has had me in its possession for quite some time, but I managed to break free by feeding it a few of those pancakes from yesterday.
Second of all, I’d like to address dubstep as a whole. I can admit I am a fan of the genre, but it’s rapidly going the route of deathcore, if you get what I’m saying. Basically, it was cool to me (hipster alert, but bear with me) when a few artists were putting in big bass drops and getting creative with the songs (often they were just fun to listen to with the subs cranked) but now it has become a contest. Akin to deathcore and who could make the “sickest, sludgiest, most brutal breakdown,” dubstep is suffering the same problem with who can make the most “ultimate/nasty/epic drop.” A sick breakdown or a drop is not going to save poor songwriting, period.
With that said, I’d like to now touch on deathstep. Essentially, we have a melding of metal and electronic – this already, in my opinion, is EXTREMELY risky territory. A few errant clicks of the mouse and you could end up with some horrid 90s-sounding creature with guitars, synthesizers and a 2-bit techno beat. However, there are cool ways to do it. The track above is a pretty cool example and I’m liking some of the stuff he’s got in there. Another personal favorite is Singaya – Rat Monkey (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2E3gpLRO9Q) which I wrote about in that other post Islander mentioned.
To close out my thoughts on the metal/electronic discussion, I’d like to bring up a guilty pleasure: cybergrind. If you hate grind, you’ll probably hate this, and if you hate drum trigger sounds you’ll really hate this. Basically, it’s just incredibly synthetic feeling and stupid, but I kind of enjoy it (do not ask me why, I know it’s terrible). I can guarantee you’ll either really enjoy it or really hate it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSbwaz6Esoo
Hee hee… massive wall of penis.
I dunno if anyone noticed but this has a bunch of metal songs remixed into it. In crappy dubstep version. But at from about the 10 minute mark till 12 is As I Lay Dying – I Never Wanted. At 13 minutes in is Metallica – Creeping Death. At around 17 minutes is some Suicide Silence song and then at 21 minutes in is a Limp Bizkit song and that is when i stopped listening.
This is just one huge crappy dubstep song with other metal songs mixed into it. I see nothing innovative or original about that.
You have a good ear — a lot better than mine. But don’t you think there is still a talent in mixing those samples together seamlessly in a work that includes so much else? I don’t think the use of metal samples makes this unoriginal. This still took an inspiration and a lot of work. It may not appeal to you musically, but isn’t it still something that’s original — and innovative?
The fact that Limp Bizkit is mixed in discouraged me from listening to it, because I abhor the image of that band (honestly I’ve never really listened to them as far as I can recall), and I abhor a lot of the fans, because they are idiots for reasons that surpass the nu-metal stereotype (I heard at one show during a song called “Break Things” or something like that, the venue was trashed and several people were raped if I do recall correctly, I read that a while ago, so if my facts are off I apologize to those whom it may concern).
I will however comment on the artwork in two words, one possibly made up.
AWESOMELY EPIC.
No question — I thought the artwork was killer. It would make a cool shirt. As for the Limp Bizkit sample (if that’s what it is — I couldn’t say), check my response to CreptorStatus’ comment.
I don’t think deathstep can be called a genre yet, since there are so few deathstep acts. But as a fan of both slam and dubstep, I’m excited about the future of this genre. The only deathstep artists I know of which have put out an entire release, except for the previously mentioned Commissioner and Singaya, are:
* Substep Infrabass ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_rWnabu6hI ). I really love this, and I’ve listened to their three song release many times. This is dubstep with a dark death metal aesthetic.
* Slam Coke ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYD4LaI2RCQ&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_780661 ). Slam mixed with dubstep. I’m excited about this, but I haven’t gotten hold of the album yet (because the online store requires me to buy stuff for at least 25 euro to order it, which I refuse to do!).
To comment on Switchup: I didn’t really like it. I’m not a fan of mixes or really long tracks. I thought it sounded mostly like dubstep with a few metal mixes blended in, and not what I would wish the term “deathstep” to refer to. I think I heard Commissioner (or some other Big Chocolate song) mixed in at around the 18 minute mark.
Re. cybergrind. I enjoy cybergrind and I hope deathstep won’t suffer the fate it did. What happened to cybergrind was that there were very few serious bands and the genre was mostly saturated by shitty one-man myspace bands which only made a few songs with awful production.
Only a couple minutes in; sounds decent enough to try to make it through the rest (and hearing that Limp Bizkit’s somewhere in here doesn’t scare me). Just can’t do it right now. Maybe if I bring my own computer in to work tomorrow. Might not be something I’d care to listen to a lot, but it doesn’t sound like something I’m going to regret giving up 40 minutes to listen to.
I’ve just started into it, but it seems like a massive wall of pancake. Some moments of brilliance (overwrought though it may be), but it can be kind of a tough slough at times. That’s the advantage of writing songs: there are clear themes in each track, so one can skip over the not so great ones.
I do kinda feel like someone’s gonna knock on my door and ask me if I want to take the red pill or the green pill.
I’m pretty sure it’d be a suppository too…
You almost sound like you don’t want it to be one.
If so, the fuck’s wrong with you?
Sorry, you’re right, I should be happy.
Unfortunately, the squirrel hasn’t come out yet….
Bwahahahahahahahahah
A bit late to the party, bu Whourkr perhaps?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQx7Y34DKSI
Hey, welcome back! I hope things have been going well for you and Canopy. Whourkr is INSANE. I’ve heard their name before (how could anyone forget it?) but I think this is the first time I’ve listened to a song. I like.