The last time we heard from this Denver/Bolíver axis was through their 2021 EP Mechalith, a record our own Andy Synn put on his year-end list of top 10 EPs, even though it had just come out the day before he finished the list. Why did it make such an impact (like a meteor crater)? Andy explained:
“[I]f you’re looking for something that exists purely to pulverise your ear-drums – blasting and bludgeoning and breaking-the-fuck-down without mercy or restraint – but also has a few clever cyber-synth tricks up its heavily armed and armoured sleeve (also drawing comparison, in places, to the extremophile excess of our old friends The Monolith Deathcult), then you should definitely give Mechalith a shot.”
About 2 1/2 years later, here we are, confronting another imminent meteor strike. Which is to say that Djinn-Ghül are back, this time with a full-length named Opulence. You’ve still got a little while to prepare — there might be time to build an underground bunker before the July 14 release date scheduled by Vicious Instinct Records — but you better not waste time. Dig deep and harden that shelter as if your life depends on it.
But we hasten to add that Opulence isn’t just devastating. The international duo of Grant Nachbur (Nephrectomy) and Junior Patiño (Rotten Vomit, Voraraephilia) have always had other things in mind besides ruthlessly blasting and bludgeoning, but it’s fair to say that with the new album they’ve hit new high points of nightmarish futurism — as well as new high points of brutalizing mechanized chaos. Take, for example, the album’s title track that we’re premiering today through a grotesque post-apocalyptic video.
For “Opulence“, Djinn-Ghül enlisted a guest vocal appearance by Jordan James of Disentomb, who enhances the music’s atmosphere of truly monstrous horror. The cavalcade of hideous gutturals and berserk screams plays a big role in what makes the song so terrorizing, but other factors play vital roles as well.
The drums spit bullets at a blistering rate of speed, but also join with the stringed instruments to inflict pulverizing rail-gun strikes. The riffing comes in vicious swarms and inflicts doses of industrialized jackhammering. Maybe it’s the bass that sounds like some alien mechanoid chewing through concrete. And all of that seems surrounded at times by waves of eerie but poisonous cosmic radiation.
There comes a point when the band forsake the brute-force traumas and double-down on the horrors. When the drums vanish it sounds like the clash and clang of machines in a macabre factory, or like the march of Terminators through barren streets scourged of life. Even when the drums start thundering again and a bizarre collection of vocal emissions rise up, the music sounds utterly alien.
As for what this song is all about, Djinn-Ghül tell us this:
“‘Opulence‘ was written as a reminder that even the most powerful societies fall. Every civilization has made technological advancements in separate ways, but none have ever been saved by technology, and the global society of today has been thrust into a frenzy because of it. Greed is a recurring theme in our music, and the title track reflects its nature as a catalyst for deterioration.”
This isn’t the only song on the new album to include a guest vocalist. Phlegeton of Wormed, Sara Crow, and Alex Marr also pitch in on other songs. The album’s bizarre painted cover art is nothing short of spectacular, and credit for it goes to Chinese artist Guang Yang. Check the links below for more info about the album and how to stream this new song.
PRE-ORDER:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/djinnghl1/opulence
https://viciousinstinctrecords.bandcamp.com/
DIGITAL STREAMING:
https://viciousinstinctrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/djinnghl1/opulence-feat-jordan-james
DJINN-GHÚL:
Bandcamp: https://djinnghulofficial.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DjinnGhul/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/djinnghul