(Andy Synn presents four of October’s most outstanding releases you may not have checked out)
Time’s arrow marches ever forwards my friends, and soon enough – sooner than you think – it will be “List Season” all over again, where we look back and take stock of the year gone by before we turn our attentions to 2025.
As a result I’m having to be incredibly selective about where and how I spend my precious time in regards to reviews, which means that I’ve had to make some fairly lamentable omissions this past month, including the new album from Cosmic Putrefaction (though hopefully I’ll get to that one in more detail in one of my end of year retrospectives), plus both the new Doedsmaghird and Iotunn releases (though you can find excellent write-ups of both over at AngryMetalGuy), and many more besides.
But let’s not focus on what we may have missed and instead focus on what we shouldn’t, shall we?
CHAINED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN – SISYPHEAN CRUELTY
Last year’s Obsession Destruction, the second album by sadistic sonic sludge-spewers Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean was, without a doubt, one of the best records of 2023.
But even though I made sure to give the album an “honorary mention” as part of my “Critical Top Ten“, and then a slightly longer mention in my final round-up of the year, I still feel like I failed to give the record the attention and acclaim it so richly deserved.
That’s not a mistake I’m going to make again, however, as while Sisyphean Cruelty isn’t quite as brilliant as its outstanding predecessor, it still deserves to be heard by, and inflict harm upon, as many people as possible.
A word of warning though – don’t go into this expecting a repeat of, or even a sequel to, Obsession Destruction, as the two albums represent somewhat different sides of the band’s unforgivingly ugly sound (with Sisyphean Cruelty, clocking in at barely more than half the length of OD, opting for a more aggressive and in-your-face approach that errs more towards the more Hardcore-derived side of Sludge rather than the latter’s darker, doomier delivery).
Songs like grimy, galloping opener “Reverse Baptism” and the gruesome, grinding “Unfit For Human Life” are a cathartic cacophony of scalding venom and nihilistic noise that at times seem to err closer to Goatwhore than Grief, while the bilious blackened strains of “Crawl Off and Die” and the gut-churning, barn-burning title-track up the ante even further and continue to push the band’s sound in an even gnarlier, nastier direction.
There are still some devastatingly doomy moments to be found, that’s for sure – “Deconstruction of the Great Immovable” in particular carries over that same sense of ominous, oppressive weight which permeated Obsession Destruction, while the desperate, desolate “Barely Any Reason to be Alive” is as soul-crushing as it is sludge-soaked – but there’s no question that Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean decided to go straight for the throat on this one.
GIGAN – REFLECTIONS OF EXECRABLE STILLNESS
No-one does it quite like Gigan, that’s for sure – it’s not just that the band can play (cosmic) rings around most of the competition (main-man Eric Hersemann clearly loves spacing out on the theremin almost as much as he loves shredding it up on the guitar, while drummer Nathan Cotton might as well have an extra set of cyborg arms attached to his torso, such is the incredible intensity and precision of his performance) it’s that they somehow keep finding ways to twist themselves into new, non-Euclidean configurations with every new release.
Opener “Trans-Dimensional Crossing of the Alta-Tenuis“, for example, shrouds its tumultuous technicality in an aura of moody, subversively melodic, atmosphere, while the frantic “Ultra-Violet Shimmer And Permeating Infra-Sound” is possessed of an almost Mathcore-ish madness, with the obliquely-angled riffs and oddly catchy (at least by the band’s usual brain-melting standards), off-kilter grooves of “Square Wave Subversion” and the expansive proggy extremity of “Ultra-Violet Shimmer And Permeating Infra-Sound” (which showcases some of Cotton’s most complex, yet carefully restrained, drum work, as well as making room for Hersemann to give free reign to his most avant-garde impulses during the song’s dissonantly noisy mid-section) further pushing the boundaries of the band’s unique brand of Death Metal deviance.
And that’s just the first half of the album… things arguably get even wilder with the brutal back-to-back auditory assaults of “Katabatic Windswept Landscapes” (which sounds like all your favourite Death Metal bands on an acid-fuelled bender) and the utterly unrelenting “Erratic Pulsitivity And Horror”, and then even weirder with the dizzyingly discordant strains of “The Strange Harvest Of The Baganoids” and crushing closer “Ominous Silhouettes Cast Across Gulfs Of Time”, which demonstrates – over the course of just a single song – that Gigan are still more than capable of surprising you, favouring grinding slowness over galloping speed, clever intricacy over caustic intensity… right up until the album’s final moments where they drop one final bomb of biblical brutality to leave you reeling and, hopefully, hungry for yet another go around!
LAUDARE – REQUIEM
How does one quickly and succinctly describe the music of Laudare, as presented here on their second album, Requiem?
One could lay out a list of the various elements involved – part Black Metal, part Progressive/Art Rock, part Chamber Music (i.e. small scale Classical compositions designed for a more intimate, less orchestral, environment) – or make reference to certain bands (Ludicra, Respire, SubRosa) with whom they share some sonic similarities… but ultimately the devil is, as always, in the details.
Whether that’s the intricate way in which the likes of “Dies Irae” and “Quid Sum Miser” marry seething – and subtly proggy – blackened intensity with moments of moody contemplation, interspersed with passages of soaring strings and crooning clean vocals, in a way which defies simple and straightforward categorisation, or the shift towards morose, doomy grandeur and dulcet, string-driven melody on “Rex Tremendae” and “Lacrimos”, there’s always seemingly something new to hear, whether it’s your first listen or your fiftieth.
But while Requiem is an album full of surprises, the fact that the band make it all flow so well – not just on a song-by-song basis, but within each cleverly composed, artfully arranged track – is a testament to both their impressive songwriting skills and their cohesive collective vision.
The back-half of the album in particular epitomises the band’s willingness to blur (and break) the boundaries between styles/genres, with the lavishly hooky Prog-Black-meets-Post-Hardcore of “Offertorium” sitting smoothly alongside the stripped-down acoustic strains of “Hostias”, which in turn gives way to the seething intensity (and haunting solemnity) of “Sanctus” and the mournful, classically-inspired doomery of “Agnus Dei”, each song representing a subtly different facet of the band’s identity yet also contributing, in its own unique way, the the greater and more grandiose whole.
ORANSSI PAZUZU – MUUNTAUTUJA
There’s always a fair bit of discussion, whenever Oranssi Pazuzu release a new album, about whether the Finnish fivesome are actually “Black Metal” or not.
But, lest we forget, a great many of the genre’s early pioneers (a word which I’ve chosen deliberately) became even more famous for pushing the boundaries and challenging the constraints of the style they’d help create… and so, to my mind at least, every single Oranssi Pazuzu release has continued to capture the “true” spirit of Black Metal, if not the “traditional” sound.
And Muuntautuja is no different in this regard – it’s just that this time around the song’s owe just as much to the likes of Coil, Swans, and Godflesh (to name but a few of the unapologetically non-kvlt influences and inspirations which have gone into this album) as they do anything from the Black Metal scene.
Even then, while some will doubtless see this as a step too far, it’s worth noting that it’s not exactly unheard of for members of the Black Metal community (even if they’re the proverbial “black sheep”) to dip their toes into the waters of the industrial/ambient/darkwave scenes – nor is it entirely new ground for Oranssi Pazuzu themselves – it’s just that it’s so rarely done with such careful craftsmanship or dedication to the form as it is here.
From the stroboscopic savagery of “Bioalkemisti” (five and a half minutes of thick, throbbing bass-lines and nerve-jangling guitars) and the sinister sound-waves of “Muuntautuja” to the predatory pulse of nightmare-inducing penultimate track “Ikikäärme” and the eerie electronic ambience of “Vierivä usva” – with stop-offs along the way to spit-forth the utterly monstrous “Voitelu” (which I defy anyone to say isn’t “Black Metal” as hell) and the apocalyptically industrial strains of “Valotus” – the band continue to do what they do best… which is to defy expectations and redefine exactly what it means to be “heavy” one mind-bending, genre-blending track at a time.