(written by Islander)
From the fantabulous cover art adorning this Swiss band’s new album to their fantabulous name, I was inexorably drawn to Mandroïd Of Krypton‘s new album, and the record’s name was also an attraction: Cosmic Sarcophagus.
Those were the first hooks here, but not the band’s previous music, of which I was ignorant. Our humble site was in existence when Mandroïd Of Krypton released their first album and an EP in 2012 (Our Brilliant Embassies and Angry Space Zombies), and when they followed those with a second album in 2015 (Hyperkaossmarket), but we missed them despite the also-excellent names of those releases.
And that’s okay, because the nine-year gap between that last release and this new one is suggestive of the possibility, if not the likelihood, of musical changes, especially because of lineup alterations that occurred during that period. So, we can take Cosmic Sarcophagus on its own terms, and leave to others a mapping of the band’s nine-year musical evolution.
photos by Rebecca Bowring
The press materials accompanying the new album do assert that there’s been a change in style, an evolution of the band into “into a proggy, blackened thrash/punk powerhouse”, drawing influences from early Voïvod, Dead Kennedys, and Mayhem — “a more direct, aggressive, and heavier sound” than what was apparent on Hyperkaossmarket.
Those descriptions were good hooks too, but so was the description of the album’s subject matter, summing them up as a “signature blend of science fiction themes and radical ecological viewpoints, presenting dystopian imagery of a last stand on a ravaged planet with the hope of renewal after chaos”.
The first single from the album (finally I’m getting to the music!) was also a damned big hook.
As I impulsively wrote after hearing “The Waltz of Death”, the vocals on that song quickly stabbed me. “They’re wild and raw, a high gritty howl just on the bleeding edge of igniting.” But they weren’t the only attraction.
The song is also “a high-powered, dirty-toned gut punch, heavy as hell and ferociously mauling, thrashing and lividly throbbing, with a crazed lead-guitar squirming in the midst of electrifying drumwork and big doses of primally compulsive riffage.” I also found it quite highly infectious.
How happy I was to discover that the rest of the album is just as big a kick in the head as that first single.
Like “The Waltz of Death”, those other kicks are swift, in the sense that all the songs are in the range of 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes, though their internal pacing varies.
And they really are kicks — with hammering grooves that vibrantly drive a listener’s pulse, raw and reaping riffs that slash with heavy, ugly blades, and other riffs that sizzle and whir, rabidly thrash, brazenly blare, or feverishly throb.
The band also lace the songs with more crystalline guitar tones that are alien in their melodic emanations as they chime, squirm, and scream, and they anchor them with bass lines you can feel in your bowels.
As mentioned, the pacing of the songs internally vary as Mandroïd Of Krypton switch up the moods — slowing to cast palls of ominous gloom, and accelerating into episodes of delirium.
By way of further example, in the title track they send out sweeping waves of melodic despair, create sonic war-zones of destructive cataclysm, and cause the music to tower in a kind of world-ending grandeur. And in “Mountains of Fear“, frightening sounds that might be a guitar solo and might be the wails of some alien creature spiral upward in a way that sends shivers down the spine, while the soloing in “Fallen Angels” is downright psychedelic.
If you feel the need to put your head under an enormous and brutishly applied rhythmic pile-driver, just move right into “Asteroid Brigade“, and after that you can have your broken bits stomped into jelly by “Veterans of the Cosmic War” while strange-sounding sirens exultantly blare, and then you can allow “Land of Ghosts” to put the frighteners in your addled mind.
You’ll definitely detect the stylistic ingredients — and they do range from thrash to punk, and from black metal to doom and psychedelia, with bursts of progginess as well. Perhaps needless to say at this point, they whip those ingredients together in remarkably companionable ways, creating a true hybrid rather than some kind of bolted-together Frankenstein’s monster.
But I need to come back to the vocals, because as head-busting and spine-tingling as the music is, those vocals really are astonishing, and one of the album’s signal strengths. They’re remarkably wide-ranging, featuring maddened, gritty yells, sky-high wails, vicious blackened snarls, and even some guttural growls. They’re an absolutely vital feature in the music’s dynamic, mood-altering qualities.
I’ve made abundantly clear how much fun I think this album is — how ingenious and adventurous, how eccentric yet viscerally compelling it is. It’s a musical shapeshifter of a high order, and now you can take the ride toward far horizons for yourselves:
Cosmic Sarcophagus will be released on November 29th via the Swiss label MTAF Records, available digitally on all platforms. A limited edition of 250 silver vinyl copies will be distributed in Switzerland by Irascible and globally by Season of Mist.
That striking cover art was made by Bruno C. The album was recorded by the band, mixed by Mandroïd singer-guitarist Gabriel F. (who also works as a live sound engineer), and mastered by Nostromo’s Lad A. at Caduceus Studios.
The album features drummer and crime series director Romain G. along with new member Sylvain C. on second guitar (he is a master bricklayer, and also happens to be the brother of graphic designer, and former bassist, Bruno C.). Additionally, Tim R.C., a freelance cameraman, makes his debut on bass.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.mtaf-records.com/en
https://mandroidofkrypton.bandcamp.com
MANDROÏD OF KRYPTON:
https://www.facebook.com/mandroidofkrypton
https://www.instagram.com/mandroidofkrypton