RINGS OF SATURN: “DINGIR”

(Today we have not one, but two reviews of the new album by Rings of Saturn, and this one comes to you courtesy of TheMadIsraeli. Check out the second one here.)

Speaking of Br00tz rank, Rings of Saturn just got promoted to fucking grandmaster general McFuck you up prestige levels.  It’s shitty what happened with Dingir getting leaked, so I figured I’d do my part by showing my support for this album, because it’s fucking good. It’s rather odd, considering that I admittedly didn’t think the band’s first album was all that impressive.  Dingir, however, is a monster.  A tentacle raping brain scrambling “oh fuck I think I’ve been sonically anally probed” monster.

Technical deathcore, like deathcore generally, gets as much of a bad rap as anything -core, and usually for good reason.  It’s often just breakdowns with sweeping in between.  Much of it sounds boring as fuck-all to me (the style doesn’t really lend itself to dynamics very well), so it means something that I’m actually reviewing this.  The fact this album has legitimate riffs helps its case quite a bit.  The breakdowns and chugs are here, for sure, but that’s balanced by a plentiful amount of tech-riffing that hits the spot.

Some people might still find this album unsatisfying, because like most tech-deathcore, it isn’t dynamic — but this time that’s not a drawback.  There is a definite intensity going on here that is rather unmatched, except maybe by Infant Annihilator (sans ass-fucking in the woods).

Now, on the other hand, if you want to be assaulted non-stop by brutality and obscene amounts of technicality with quirky, cheesy, 50’s sci-fi movie moments, this is the album for you.  I happen to be the type of person who likes listening to the sound of an alien invasion, the inevitable war with humans, and the unknown to follow.  Dingir channels this, whether through the particular choices in melody, the riffs, and the solos, or the crazy synth work that takes over on occasion, or the just plain out-there sound effects the guitars create.

Whether you’re being decimated by the breakdowns that hit with the weight of a plummeting UFO or you’re being dissected with all sorts of enigmatic, scary-as-fuck implements in the form of the absolutely insane dual shred of guitarists Lucas Mann (who btw, is guesting on a song on Infant Annihilator’s debut) and Joel Omans, Dingir is merciless.  I mean, Ian Bearer has the voice of a planet-sized space squid, and the bass and drums of Sean Martinez and Ian Baker practically align the planets with the insane intensity of their playing.

And besides the stellar individual performances, the songs themselves are really good.  With dynamics rarely employed, ROS really reel you in by the random chaos of the songs more than anything.  You’ll be listening to something entirely atonal and (this word keeps coming up, man) alien-sounding, only to have gears shift immediately and the music move into something melodic and almost uplifting.

The mood changes, though, are really made by the synth work. The sounds and tones applied here are SO fitting for the band’s aliencore motif that you really feel like you’re floating in space through a galaxy not in our proximity.  Whether it be the Blade Runner-esque ambiences of “Objective to Harvest” or the completely thrown in out of fucking nowhere dance groove in “Galactic Cleansing”, the album really does keep you guessing, despite being a total onslaught of brutality from second zero.

I’m just saying, this album is the pinnacle of this style right now.  Infant Annihilator might beat it when their debut drops, but until then I’m telling you guys to save up money for next year when this actually is buyable.  It’s really good, superb, excellent, mind-blowing stuff.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dingir was originally scheduled for release by Unique Leader in November. Over the weekend just past, we reported that due to undisclosed “legal issues”, the release date had been pushed back to February 5 — and that an unfinished pre-mastered version of the album leaked last Friday and began to spread around the internet. As a result of these unforeseen developments, Rings of Saturn took some unusual actions.

First, on Saturday they posted the entire finished version of the album for streaming on YouTube. And then on Sunday they made the album available for free download at the Total Deathcore site, where you can also stream the tracks on an individual basis. THIS is the link to that site.

As far as we know, the album will still be released by Unique Leader as a CD on February 5, and Rings of Saturn recently announced that plans for pre-orders are in the works. Here’s the full-album stream: