Oberdada's Guide to Obscure Metal

Part III: Reviews, continued

A few more recent releases.

SAVE THIS UTILITY : Deprivation

Japanese progressive band. Mellow jazz lounge piano with growl vocals and otherwise standard metal instrumentation. None of the ingredients are particularly original, their simultaneous blend is.

Defornicated : Illuminati Meth Camp

Unleash your creative potential with unlimited silliness. Splendidly immature culture-napping montages.

Disciplina Arcani

Too much midi, but such interesting compositions.

Cryptic Process: Human Snack

Fast but comprehensible.

Moon Twin: Curse

Elegantly floating progressive something.

Collapsed Mainframe

A musical introduction to Ted Kaczynski.

Cobblestoning

What about christening your songs something that takes longer to pronounce than it takes to play the song?

Gangrenectomy

I realise that this is a style and not only an aberration. Throat singing, mostly on the vowel 'u', drop tuning or otherwise extended bass register, four kick drum beats on every chug of guitar, metric modulations while retaining the same riff, and perhaps most obviously, the gore and mass murderer aesthetics, there are a few good bands who deliver similar stuff. This one from Sicily has something groovy and playful to them that isn't always present in comparable bands. Their whole catalogue of five albums from 2017 to the present is well worth their time.

Keygen Church

In the last part I will mention a band that successfully uses a pipe organ. Now, I just discovered that there is another one, probably more famous too. Keygen Church, as far as I can tell, is the work of the same person who is behind one of bandcamps most touted metal artists. The music balances between classical baroque pastische, chiptune aesthetics, and a metal sound. No doubt this is a versatile musician. However, this balancing between different musical realms is easily interpreted as kitsch and pretentious attempts to solder together that which should be kept separate. Regarded in terms of a classical music performance it would be too crude albeit technically brilliant. It is reminiscent of the hesitancy between mechanical patterns and some slight hints of more nuanced expressive phrasing one can sometimes find in Philip Glass, and which likewise troubles some of his music.

Lizard Tongue

I must say this Lizard Toung album speaks weird, and not the way things usually become weird. A noisy, bandlimited guitar dominates the background, atop of which the misplaced and tonedeaf singer insists on joining the band. The one man band, that is, who writes whatever interests him at the moment. Of course you should, as a sure way to shake off obnoxious followers. No, seriously, this is brilliant. Useless is more of standard fare metal, but note purely. There is also an interesting polytonal track called She Doesn't Love You which appears on A Day in the Life. However, you have every excuse to skip the manga grunge vocoder tracks.

Blarkehn Larvae: Hell in the Name of God

The Power of Christ Compels You is a dialogue between a priest and some kind of deranged dark power, a refreshing spoken word number. The theatrics continue on other tracks, overplayed acting of course, but still done with a certain finesse. The penultimate track features excellent acoustic guitar solo playing, somewhat in the flamenco lineage of the guitar parts in Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. A pipe organ enters alone, contrasted against the standard metal texture and not integrated into it (as Quercus so successfully do, reviewed elsewhere).

Seimos: Unreal EP

Just a heads up for the catchy tunes from this Peruvian band. Mostly straight 4/4 chugging with some tempo shifts and classical guitar solos, this could have been done by some foresighted band in the 80's.

Kostnatění

Turkish black metal, in the meaningful sense of actually using original Turkish tunes. The guitar part is lightfooted as free-flowing veena or sitar playing can be, and may veer into The Shag territory by irreverent polytonality. Or is it only those parallel fourths with lax tuning? No, it must be some maqqam I'm not familiar with.

Mutated Sex Organ: Rapture in Fetal Decay

Humppa gone wrong. The format is concise, often under a minute. Noisy and dense, but engaging in a way.

Hospital Bomber: Demonstration of two songs

Quite a successful demonstration, I must say. Both are songs, one of them shorter than the other and neither very long. Something makes them stand out from the crowd, though. I think it's a clever filling up of the spectrum, seeing to it that there is variation and enough room for some punch.

Metuzalem: Infra

What a difference a little fuzz does. Traditional jazz guitarists are known for their dull, sinusoidal sound, but add full distortion and the jazz chords become surprisingly hard to recognise because the notes are so much harder to hear out individually. Here I think they throw in some minor ninths or minor seconds in their harmonies. Compelling album anyway.

Odachi: Salvo

Only those brief interleaved off-genre riffs and guitar sounds betray them: half a measure of rock-n-roll here, a fraction of a second of ... something that ought not be there. Since it's generally slow I suppose it must be called sludge, doom or stoner or something, and those inserts are so short, so few and far between that I wonder, why not some more, without taking it to the excesses of Naked City. Apparently enough to serve as an excuse for the experimental label.

Schundmären

If the Residents were a metal band, they might sound like this at their worst moments. The comparison actually isn't justified. (If you need us to explain the joke, you are the joke, as these blokes say.) Features spoken stories about witches, in German.

Mr Marcaille

One man, one cello, voice, and duble kick drum, that ought to do. There is no particular reason why he would remind of his compatriot Jean Louis Costes, apart from their equally wild punk attitude.

Nuclear Goatcult: Baphometic Vomit Genocide

Two member band, one of whom must have one of the longest ever artist name, unless it is meant as a title, which I shall refrain from repeating here. Go look it up yourself. The comb filter reverb with high wet level works its wonders on a background layer of lowpass filtered snare drum and other instruments. We are in the back of a long room, mostly empty, with the muppet desperados far away on stage and hidden by a smoke machine. I wouldn't mind having the alien vocals up front in the mix. The titles witness a keen interest in goats, clever and amusing animals, no doubt. The longish title track ends with a grayish foggy outro of the kind usually reserved for intros, all other tracks keep to normal pop length.

Soaked In Cadaveric Mush

Short songs prefaced by ... scums, I suppose, vocals sounding as something going down the drain, opaque walls of grinding guitar.

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty:

More songs to help you pass your clinical pathology exam, these here froth, boil, blow underwater bubbles, squeek like whales. Exemplary foley work.

Sinistra Mors: Infernüs

Vocal duo between a demented gnome and an almost tone-deaf ogre, cavernous sound as if recorded from a room next door. No matter how spontaneous, live, and amateurish it sounds, there is no doubt it's the result of deliberate choices.

STENCH

Hold on a bit. Why not an acapella version since the tounge twisting and throat tickling easily compares to the best of the lettrists or dada sound poetry? Only three tracks so far, they need to do moar. The demo is more articulated and original than the promo.

Ainkurn: Madness

The album begins as metal, not bad nor really something one remembers. Then comes three bonus tracks with a whole new twist, synth and ambient. The last track in particular stands out with its excellent mix and slow flow through a landscape.

Trout: Transition

The spatial left-right jump cut typical of metal mixing might as well be experienced as a jump in depth by aligning your listening position with the speakers. Try it for yourself, rebrand left and right channels as near and distant. This was something I discovered while listening to this project Trout. Fast, technical, virtuoso, and sometimes jazzy with a clean guitar sound. But, of course, one may wonder, what's the point of playing like a precision robot when you are in fact human? And also, why not take the step beyond humanly performable music while you're at it? Regardless, this is a short, intense, and brilliant album.

Corsecist: Contagion demo

The compelling open sound, not compressed into soundsausage, has been almost forgotten. Maybe it's just because this is a demo that it hasn't been mastered by a steam roller. The playing also has some unforced ease that is missing in many bands who try to be fast, tight & visceral.

Human Time

How do you tell it's progressive? Fast, inhumanly precise timing (so, whence their band name?), sharp corners. This would still be cool if played on didgeridoo and banjo. I hope someone does.

Ihatethereforeiam

Education is a sorely missing topic in most metal bands, but this act fills the void with a short EP. Some bizarre sound montages and concentrated miniatures.

Forgotten Funeral

As the title says, this is the gate of eternal suffering and death. The demo, however, doesn't last forever, only for too long. The undistorted guitar parts are exploring an alternative tuning, don't know which one, and the distorted parts are trying to induce a hearing loss. There's also some vocals somewhere there, and even drums although well hidden. Three truly disgusting tracks, and something to learn from in mixing: you don't have to have audible drums!

Gothera: The Crepuscular

Harmonies and violin chops like another Vivaldi in the hands of Yngwie Malmsteen, well, this artist does put the label neoclassical on his metal for a good reason. An easily enjoyable album, not too serious and on the verge of kitsch, it brings back the 80's to the present.

Impulse Noise: Aghoris

Swirling and itching riffs in complex overlayered arrangements and grunts with a distinctly Brazilian feel. One could almost get lost in the thicket.

Insade: Ready for Hell

Razor sharp guitars and muffled, thundering drums played with the freedom of a Ringo Starr, somehow reminiscent of some early metal before things became extreme. Guitar solos are kept brief, they are like glimpses into a rodeo with all tricks the mad horse has learnt to do. The vocals are just comprehensible, but don't worry, they're unpitched. Compelling album in every way, full of catchy tunes.

Watch this space for updates, I might add more reviews.

Intro

Metal Review, Part II

Metal Review, Part IV

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