THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

(Andy Synn highlights four albums from last month you need to listen to)

There’s two things you need to know about this column.

1. It’s usually done sooner than this but, since I didn’t get back into the country until Wednesday last week, I didn’t have chance to write everything up until now.
2. I normally try and present a pretty varied grab-bag of albums and artists in each article… but this time I’ve dedicated it solely to some of the nastiest, gnarliest, and most unfriendly sounds from September.

So, with all that in mind, let’s see what this latest edition of “Things You May Have Missed” has to offer, shall we?

ACAUSAL INTRUSION – PANPSYCHISM

Jared Moran must be one of the most prolific extreme-scene drummers working right now, and we’ve featured several of his projects (including Feral Lord, Out of the Mouth of Graves, and more) here at NCS over the years (as a matter of fact there’s another one of his bands in this very article!).

Acausal Intrusion may just be the one we’ve written about the most though, and with good reason, as the band’s signature sound – as presented on the albums Nulitas and Seeping Evocation – has long-proven to be as hypnotic as it is horrifying.

On Panpsychism the duo (Moran continuing to provide primary vocals as well as percussive punishment, with guitars/bass and keyboards handled by long-time creative collaborator Nicholas Turner) have leaned even further into both these aspects, increasing the terrifying intensity on tracks such as “Statical Universe” and the monstrous “Continuum Magnitude” while also upping the dosage of psychotropic ambience and psychoactive anti-melody which infuses the entire record, with the pair’s increasing use of bleak atmosphere and negative space pushing their sound in an even darker, doomier direction akin to Abyssal and Tchornobog.

The groaning tension and grating technicality of “Encoding Hexagrams”, for example, quickly showcases the band’s increasingly dynamic embrace of both devastating dissonance and moody melody, but it’s the unsettling juxtaposition of warped beauty and barely-controlled chaos which characterises both the shape-shifting “Pillar of Rationality” and the equally unorthodox “Molecular Entanglement” – the two longest, and strongest, tracks on the entire record – which really represents the very best which Panpsychism has to offer.

Acausal Intrusion have never been an easy band to listen to, that’s for sure. But there’s something about this album, something difficult to put my finger on, which makes it perhaps the most “accessible” record of their career. Although, let’s be honest, that’s a relative term if ever there was one, and it still requires a certain degree of musical derangement to fully appreciate everything that Panpsychism has to offer!

ALTARAGE – WORST CASE SCENARIO

While the first three albums from Spanish sonic-sadists Altarage – Nihl, Endinghent, and The Approaching Roar – together form a triumphant (and terrifying) trilogy of metallic madness and auditory horror, the two albums which followed were definitely more… divisive (Succumb have some intriguing ideas but not always executing them to their full potential, and the previously vinyl-only – but now finally available digitally – Sol Corrupto pushing their dark ambient aspects and ambitions to the forefront).

But the release of the group’s sixth album (whose title-track, interestingly enough, can only be found on the preceding Cataract EP) retroactively makes both those records make more sense in the grand scheme of things, as the lessons learned from those more experimental digressions have clearly informed the writing of Worst Case Scenario.

This is especially clear during the brutalist, bone-grinding rhythms of “Enigma Signals” or the crushing density and asphyxiating atmospherics of massive mid-album highlight “Gift of Awakening”, which combine the group’s ever-present Portal, Incantation, and Ulcerate influences with a hefty amount of Godflesh and/or Neurosis for good measure.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Altarage have lost their ability to stun their listeners into insensibility with pure, punishing heaviness by any means – “Case Full of Putrid Stars”, for example, is just under three-and-a-half minutes of utterly abrasive riffs and abusive rhythms, while both “Øwork” and spiteful closer “Exhaust” are easily some of the most intense tracks of the group’s career – but there’s no question that Worst Case Scenario delivers its sonic shock ‘n’ awe with an extra undercurrent of bleakly apocalyptic atmosphere that ultimately gives it a subtly different flavour (both “Verdict” and “The Rigid Subject” sitting somewhere between Blackened Grindcore and Sludgy Noise on the Extreme Metal spectrum) than that of the band’s earliest era(s).

Whether this is a sign of things to come – I, for one, would be more than happy for them to repeat the success of their first three albums with a new trio of records following in the footsteps of this one – or simply another digression along the band’s ever-evolving path of experimental extremity, only time will tell.

FABRICANT – DRUDGE TO THE THICKET

The terms “Tech Death” or “Technical Death Metal” (which, to me at least, denote slightly different things even if they’re often used interchangeably) are ones which have often proven pretty divisive. But while there’s no questioning Fabricant‘s twisted technical talents, it’s worth noting that Drudge to the Thicket is more Anata than Archspire, with a lot more dirt on its boots and filth under its fingernails than is generally common in today’s “Tech” scene.

This is, of course, no bad thing (nor, to be clear, is it an indictment of the latter band in any way) as the gruesome grooves and deviously disharmonic riffs which drive opener “Prey to Whom” so confidently attest, and the organic ugliness which perfuses tracks like “Eloper’s Revelations” (whose piercing central hook is guaranteed to work its way deep into your sub-conscious) and “Demigod Prototype” (which sits somewhere between Demilich and Dying Fetus on the sonic spectrum) keeps the material firmly grounded in the “Death Metal” side of “Technical Death Metal”.

The group also aren’t afraid to flex their proggier muscles now and then either – “Song of Stillness”, for example, injects some elasticated, Primus-esque prog-groove into its Necrophagist-influenced assault, while the eerie atmospheric leads and undulating ambient undercurrents of “Adrift the Sleepless Swamp” indicate some intriguing new directions which the band’s next release would do well to develop further – but never in a way that feels under-cooked or overly self-indulgent.

Indeed, one of the album’s biggest strengths is that, for all its unpredictable twists and turns – some of which, I’ll admit, work better than others – it always seems to have a clear direction and destination in mind. Fabricant aren’t just throwing ideas at the wall in order to see what sticks but, as the subtly blackened melodies and virulent hooks of the title-track epitomise, display a clear method to their particular form of musical madness.

ZVLYPWKUA – THE OUTLYING ENTITIES

Zvlypwkua is the second Jared Moran project we’re featuring here today and it is, if anything, even more out there and unorthodox than the first one.

First-track-proper (following on from the unsettling ambience of “Dimension Walker”) “Vanished Vibrations” has an almost improvisational feel to it, all squalling dissonance and spasming lead parts – interspersed with the occasional off-kilter piece of piano – that swiftly sets the tone for the rest of the album, with “Erode Horizon” then pushing the envelope even further – is this even still music? I’m sure that answer for some people will be “no” – in the band’s pursuit of maximum discordance.

And yet, for all their capricious refusal to conform, even a little bit, to the norm, you still sense that Zvlypwkua are always in control, even as the music – if you can call it that – constantly threatens to run away from them.

They exert this control not by placing artificial limits or trying to impose an arbitrary sense of order but by simply embracing the chaos, following their most esoteric and experimental impulses to their logical (or illogical) conclusions in a fascinating display of spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness songwriting which makes tracks like “Opposition” and “Descending Target” so strangely compelling despite their seemingly impenetrable and downright adversarial nature.

Even at its most unforgiving, however, The Outlying Entities still exhibits an undeniable (albeit, highly unconventional) allure – both the latter two tracks, for example, benefit from the use of skittering, needle-like lead patterns and passages of sinister ambience – which, for a certain type of person, will undoubtedly prove as irresistible to some as it is incomprehensible to others.