AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DISSOCIA — “SAMSARA”

(written by Islander)

“A new progressive death metal band featuring members of Persefone and Wormed.” Say no more! Whatever they’re doing, with those pedigrees it must be worth checking out, right?

Digging a bit deeper into the back-story of Dissocia reveals that it unites the talents of multi-instrumentalist Daniel R. Flys from Persefone (and Eternal Storm) and drummer Gabriel Valcázar from Wormed (and Cancer), with additional contributions on their debut album To Lift The Veil from violinist Paul R. Flys.

At first blush, this would seem to be a head-scratching union. On the one hand, the other bands in which Dani Flys and Gabriel Valcázar are involved are exceptionally good, but on the other hand the music of those bands tends to be dramatically different from each other, and so guessing what Dissocia is all about might not be something you’d want to bet money on.

The other reason why it would be foolish to guess is that Dissocia‘s music really doesn’t sound like any of those other bands — but it too is exceptionally good, as you’ll discover for yourselves through our premiere of a visualizer for “Samsara,” a song from the debut album in advance of its release by Willowtip Records on March 21st.

Photo Credit: Sergio Albert

Willowtip describes To Lift The Veil as “a concept album that serves as a metaphor for being a growing seed in an asphalted world,” and the music itself is characterized as a “sonic landscape between two realms: the conscious and the unconscious.” In fashioning that sonic landscape, the band have drawn upon a multitude of influences. Just reading the list is likely to leave you bewildered, but hopefully intrigued:

Cynic, Gojira, The Contortionist, Rivers of Nihil, Porcupine Tree, Der Weg einer Freiheit, Leprous, Whitechapel, Venetian Snares, Igorrr, John Williams, Hans Zimmer.

Well, enough with the titillating and possibly confusing teasers, let’s get to what “Samsara” brings us.

The word that Dissocia chose for the song is complex in its meaning. As one source describes, samsara is a Sanskrit word that means “wandering” as well as “world,” wherein the term connotes “cyclic change,” and is referred to as a karmic cycle of death and rebirth but also as a “cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence.”

There is certainly nothing mundane about Dissocia‘s song, but it definitely encompasses cycles of change. It includes vividly darting electronics and mysterious melodic flows, as well as snarling guitars and electrifying percussive adventures. It includes spine-jarring jolts and booming bass-drops, but also blistering drum-mania and musing bass murmurs. The music mysteriously swirls and shimmers, menacingly churns, vividly pulsates and ripples, and expands toward grand heights.

In compiling all these changes and sensations, Dissocia deploy ingredients from a variety of extreme metal traditions as well as accents more familiar to devotees of synthwave and electronic dance music. The contrasts are startling, the changes unexpected, but it all holds together very well — as catchy as it is head-spinning.

The vocals are as shape-shifting as the music, ranging from enraged growls, rabid howls, and mind-mauling screams to singing that’s both ethereal and gritty.

And with that, we’ll stop aside and let you experience first-hand what we’ve been attempting to describe:

To Lift The Veil was mixed and mastered by the prestigious Ukrainian engineer Max Morton (Jinjer, Ignea, Shokran), and the remarkable cover art installed at the top of our post is the work of Rein Van Oyen (Haken). Via the links below, the album is available for preorders on digipack CD, vinyl LP, and digital formats.

And below the links you’ll find Dissocia‘s video for the first single from the album, “Existentialist“, which is absolutely worth exploring along with today’s premiere.

PRE-ORDER:
via Willowtip ► https://bit.ly/veil-willowtip
via Bandcamp ► https://bit.ly/veil-bandcamp

DISSOCIA:
https://dissociaofficial.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/dissociaofficial
https://www.instagram.com/dissociaofficial