The last time we premiered a song by Dipygus (here) we resorted to the word “macabre” not once but twice. Feeling somewhat nauseated, we also shared the results of our researches into the meaning of the band’s name and a particularly disgusting bodily infiltration referred to in the title of the song we shared.
We shared other info about this California band’s wide-ranging but thoroughly bizarre thematic interests, but not nearly enough. A more complete listing of those unusual interests would swell to extravagant proportions, but this time we’re going to provide the more complete exegesis… eventually… after we’ve dealt with the meat of the matter today, which is another Dipygus premiere.
But don’t overlook that historical record at the end of this article, because it’s highly entertaining
The occasion for today’s premiere is the impending January release of a third Dipygus album by Memento Mori and Crypt of the Wizard.
This full-length, which follows Deathooze (2019) and Bushmeat (2021), is self-titled. Usually when that happens, it’s a sign of a band who have decided to reinvent themselves. That’s not what has happened with this new album, but on the other hand it does reveal embellishments on the band’s already supremely twisted formulation of death metal.
Take, for example, the song you’re about to hear — “The Dover Demon“.
In previous releases Dipygus have displayed a recurring fascination with apes, and although this new song doesn’t seem to touch on that subject again, the riffs are ape-like, or at least caveman-like — hulking, brutish, and even filthier in their tones. The drums come down like clubs, and the reverb on them adds to the booming impact.
But that’s just the start, because from that bleak and brooding overture the band quickly spin up into madness, with scampering beats, bursts of hyper-accelerated drum lunacy, screaming guitar solos, feverishly darting fretwork, and voraciously hideous growls and howls.
The crazed convulsions come and go without warning, eventually reaching a crescendo of manically hammering drums, feeding-frenzy riff-swarms, and weird guitar machinations pitched way up high.
It’s still a macabre experience, to be sure (as well as an ugly and brutalizing one), with the band using their technical chops to create demonic fever dreams of exultant delirium.
Memento Mori will release Dipygus on CD, and Crypt of the Wizard will handle the vinyl edition. Both will be internationally available on January 22nd, 2024. The attention-grabbing cover art is the work of Hayden Hall.
For more info, check out the links below as the release date approaches. AND BE SURE TO THEN READ THE LONG DISQUISITION ABOUT DIPYGUS AFTER THE LINKS, which we have extracted from the PR materials accompanying the album.
CD – Memento Mori:
http://memento-mori.es
http://www.memento-mori.es/releases.php
LP – Crypt of the Wizard:
https://www.cryptofthewizard.com
https://cryptofthewizard.bandcamp.com
DIPYGUS:
https://dipygus.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/dipygus
Since the dawn of the Paleolithic age, mankind has recorded spectacular scenes of death, whether in scenes of cannibal feasts crudely etched on cave walls, massacres immortalized in glyphs adorning monuments of the ancient kingdoms, or in chance recordings of grisly accidents, compiled and sold on home video to those with a thirst for that which is denied to them by our “civilized” society.
Spawned in the contaminated sewers of Santa Cruz, California in 2013, DIPYGUS began as a four-piece mutation performing rudimentary styles of death metal, a sonic evolution of the tradition continued from the time of Cro-Magnons. A 2015 demo recording, the earliest surviving documentation of the band, reveled in unexplained and bizarre events, including peculiar methods of whale carcass disposal and otherworldly monsters from on and off the silver-screen.
After a lineup change in 2016, DIPYGUS recorded the Long Pig Feast EP, which featured terrifying rites, ritual mutilations, and ominous sightings of a Mesozoic relic in the heart of the Congo.
Their debut album, Deathooze, slowly de-composed in the murky shallows of powerplant runoff in the Monterey Bay, ultimately being recorded in 2018. Though quickly banned in over 16 countries, DIPYGUS‘ debut album attracted immediate attention among slime fetishists and similarly deviant circles. Placed appropriately alongside the Fiji mermaids and other grotesque artefacts found in curio cabinets of modern-day antiquarians, Deathooze continued the band’s exploration of inexplicable incidents, mysterious beasts, and shocking carnage, including genuine audio recovered from a fatal attack at the hands of an ape gone mad!
Following their debut album, DIPYGUS was conjoined with an additional member, and began a new exploration in search of secrets hidden in the jungles of lost continents, where life is cheap. After successful initiation into the shadowy world of black-market cuisine, an agreement was reached with MEMENTO MORI for the release of DIPYGUS‘ second full-length, Bushmeat.
Showcasing more exotic and repulsive themes of the supernatural and taboo, Bushmeat presented an uncensored and unrelenting spectacle, with each element of the previous work irresponsibly taken to a further extreme. A prime cut of raw and grueling terror, it was fit for consumption by headhunters, body-snatchers, toad-venom junkies, cargo cultists, aquatic ape theorists, disaster tourists, carriers of tropical disease, voodoo practitioners and orgone revivalists only.
All others having since been warned, DIPYGUS return to time primordial with an elegantly self-titled third album. Suitably graced with evocative cover art courtesy of Hayden Hall, Dipygus thrusts the helpless listener into a psychedelic jungle of grisly delights.
At ten songs in 41 minutes, the quartet qualify their most lengthy recording yet with maximum delirium and characteristically crushing execution. Everything here feels MASSIVE – tone, feel, supernatural aura – yet somehow simultaneously exhibits a spacious quality that’s unsettling to the Nth degree.
Perhaps that’s due to DIPYGUS‘ increasingly twisted songwriting, neither “tech” nor improvisatory, but a certain “elevated caveman” aspect that pushes primitivism toward mind-bending ends. Fleeting-yet-haunting leads also play a part in Dipygus’ menagerie of malodorousness, exacerbating the psychotic reactions in their humid, hellish jungle, and even touches of way-back synths get mangled within, melting into the fuckton heaviness of DIPYGUS‘ riffing.
Ever wanna hear the most tripped-out moments of Autopsy, Impetigo, and especially Nuclear Death taken to their ILLogicial conclusion? Then enter DIPYGUS‘ self-titled album…if you dare!