Consider the Lovecraftian monstrosity that dominates the cover of Misanthropy’s new album, and the whirling red-tinged void into which the monster is about to plunge its captive, and then consider what it might be telling you about the music.
That artwork (credit to Pedro “Lordigan” Sena) turns out to be a very fitting preview of the new album, the name of which is The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance. As demonstrated by the first two singles released from the album so far, and the third one we’re presenting today, Misanthropy‘s newest creations are indeed monstrous, out-of-this-world, and whipping whirlpools of exhilarating metallic madness.
The Transcending Obscurity label, which will release this Chicago band’s third album (and their first one in six years), also does an effective job capturing key elements of the experience:
Misanthropy offer a refreshing raw, frantic and visceral approach to the tech death style. Instead of playing safe and adopting the same safe predictable formula used by the established bands, they’re carving their own path and going about the style in their own unconventional manner, skittering off without prior warning and swerving violently and just doing things seemingly at random but mostly at break-neck speed.
It all seems wonderfully/overwhelmingly haphazard but underneath the maddening chaos lies meticulous writing and more impressively, clean execution which they have nailed while recording the music live.
For that reason the pulsating, kinetic energy on this record is tangible – one can feel the rush, the rising sense of excitement when they speed up or switch things suddenly at the spur of the moment or just resort to mangling their instruments to create the most infernal cacophony.
With that in mind, let’s turn to the song we’re premiering today, “Of Sulking And The Wrathful“.
It is an aural fashioning of hulking horror, but also unquestionably a display of virtuosic instrumental fireworks dedicated to a blossoming of freakish derangement. The tempos and rhythms don’t stay in one place for very long, and the spiderlike scrambling of the guitars and a fretless bass don’t either.
While the vocals deliver gruesome guttural bellows and madhouse screams, and the rhythm section inflict varying forms of lead-weighted and rapid-fire punishment, demented and dissonant notes swarm and whine, ravenously feast and deliriously swirl.
Through the multiply faceted fretwork, vicious ecstasies elaborately flare, spiral, and spasm, and the music also seems to gleefully frolic and revel, especially when an electrifying solo begins jubilantly (and insanely) spinning up like a centrifuge that’s lost its bearings. In the low end it still sounds like a monster growling and chewing on bone, or firing like artillery, and the lunacy of the guitars becomes murderous again by the end.
As foretold by the label, the production is clear — and cutting, and gutting — which makes the fiendish eccentricities of the music even more dazzling. And though it may not be immediately apparent, you’ll see that this thriller of a song is crafted with interlocking motifs that give it a memorable (though admittedly bizarre) structure.
MISANTHROPY Line-up:
Kevin Kovalsky – Guitar and Vocals
Paul Reszczynski – Drums
José Valles – Guitar
Mark Bojkewycz – Fretless Bass
Transcending Obscurity Records will release The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance on December 13th, on 8-panel digipak CD and digital formats, with lots of related apparel and other merch. They recommend the album for fans of Origin, Archspire, Ulcerate, Fleshbore, Gorguts, and Atheist.
Below you’ll also find those first two previously released album tracks, “The All-Devouring” and “Condemned To A Nameless Tomb“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://misanthropydm.bandcamp.com/album/the-ever-crushing-weight-of-stagnance
https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
https://eu.tometal.com/
MISANTHROPY:
http://facebook.com/MisanthropyChicago