AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DECEPTIONIST — “FINAL INNOVATION / AUTOMATIC TIME”

 

Two weeks ago we celebrated the discovery of an advance track named “Quest For Identity” from the new album by the Roman band Deceptionist. It left me questing for my own identity after the alien, hyper-speed assault of that song had scrambled my brain over high heat and left it in a smoking ruin. Two weeks later and I had just begin thinking somewhat clearly again, when I encountered the Deceptionist song we’re now about to share with you, and now I’ve again forgotten my own name. Luckily, I’m a touch-typist because my eyes also rolled back in my head and they haven’t descended yet.

The new track is named “Final Innovation / Automatic Time”, and like “Quest For identity” it appears on Deceptionist’s new album  Initializing Irreversible Process, which is set for release on June 17 by Unique Leader. This new track also comes our way wrapped in the packaging of a lyric video.

 

 

As you’ll learn from the lyrics, the album’s narrative content “deals with the relationship between humans and machines in a not-too-distant future world where men and women will live only to serve artificial masters”. But you could probably deduce that from the music alone, even without having the words spread across your screen.

The song conjures mental images of an industrialized assembly line, but not one that humankind is capable of constructing. The machine-like skittering of synchronized, start-stop guitar notes and drum beats is so highly accelerated that this assembly line is one that could only be constructed by robotic insectile xenomorphs for whom the beat of a human heart would drag like the crawl of glaciers.

Paradoxically, as blazing fast and coldly mechanical as the song is, there’s something hypnotic about listening to it. It induces a strange fugue state, and perhaps equally paradoxical, it beats with its own propulsive groove; your head will continue to move even as your eyes glaze over. And there’s a swirling, swarming guitar solo that comes to life before the song ends which is as intoxicating as it is head-spinning.

I’m still not sure I’ve figured out why I find this mechanistic music so addictive, but it is. Whether it’s possible to survive the entire album without becoming a drooling, glassy-eyed husk who has forgotten the world around him is a question I can’t yet answer — but I’m strangely eager to find out.

 

Initializing Irreversible Process features guest appearances by bassist Stefano Franceschini and vocalist Enrico H. Di Lorenzo from the awesome Hideous Divinity on “Through The Veil,” as well as the distinctive cover art of Pär Olofsson (Abysmal Dawn, Cult Of Luna, Deeds Of Flesh, Exodus, etc.).

Unique Leader will release the album on CD, LP, and digital formats worldwide on June 17. Pre-orders are available at this location.

http://www.facebook.com/deceptionistofficial
http://www.deceptionistofficial.bandcamp.com
http://www.uniqueleader.com
http://www.facebook.com/UniqueLeaderRecords