TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES OF ’23 — PART 5

LISTMANIA 2023 Add comments

Mar 122024

(Our editor wasn’t able to compile a list of Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs from 2023, but our supporter Vizzah Harri, a resident of Hanoi, Vietnam, has stepped in to fill the void. We’ve already published Parts 1-4 of his list (find those here), and now we’re proceeding with Part 5.)

This series can be seen as a coagulation of forms on psychological de-fractured symbiosis. As in, this isn’t some SCP level troll, I tried to bring the avant-garde into writing about music that appeals to me but on songs from genres and locations that are varied enough that it would appeal to most readers of this site (yes it’s still heavily biased with 14 from the USA, six from Germany, 3 each from Norway and England, two each from Vietnam, Sweden and France, while Denmark, Canada, China, Australia, Hungary, Italy, Belarus, Poland, Wales, India, Russia and Finland each were represented by one band – math ain’t my strong point, there’s a miscount in there somewhere).

Extreme music has become heavier more because of lyrical content, themes, focus on the psyche and for traversing the realms of psychology whilst unlocking that which can be extracted from attempting to understand psychoses. Many people like to say that for them it is mostly the vocals that are an acquired taste. It perhaps holds more truth for the words and concepts dealt with within the music. Disregarding the fact that not all bands do (have to) challenge us and not every band had poetry on the level of Kriegsmaschine’s Apocalypticists, there is a visceral quality of metal that compels us to keep going back, it offers cathartic release and also acts as the amphetamine to our energized bacchanals at times when our HP is low.

If the Infinite-monkey-theorem was put to the test regarding using an artificial intelligence model to suppress creativity or authenticity in spitting out something resembling these lists while attempting to bring the post-modern avant-car-guard (thanks Ters for that amazing collocational pun and encyclopedic knowledge of everything indie) shades to music writing, then that nigh-disproven theory would hold that in universes innumerable there exists a time when even the meth-tastic implosion of reason that are Die Antwoord (can’t put a blackhole to the nth level of a void of culture in bold now can we?) did in fact once display a track of true genius.

Ah, but they did, sans vox, and mercifully so, when DJ Hi-Tek added it as a hidden nugget of gold amongst the trash that was $o$ (I’m taking liberties again in breaking rules by being cynically gainsaying, however, the aforementioned clowns wouldn’t know culture if the decomposition of it wafted on a zephyr in the general direction of their hamburger hoovers while camping in their trailer in Saldanha).

What am I getting at? If you don’t find something to your liking hidden amongst the verbi(garb)age then please accept my sincerest apologies (there are links to all the tracks at the end of each excerpt).

Songs of the Psychedelic persuasion

I know everyone has a unique experience in how they perceive the world around them, but I have to admit, I’m a bit of a maniac. I once, not long ago, decided to see if I could not just listen to but write about music while under the influence of a cocktail as mindboggling as my writing is not. This is the result, albeit heavily edited for readability.

Harkening back to 2009 when there were only ten songs on the infectious list, even back then the choices were supremely tasteful. The bar has been set ergot the fungal rye varieties. The cocktail in question was Lachryma papaveris infused rice wine, lysergic acid diethylamide, C17H21NO4 and tetrahydrocannabinol, for us lay people: opium wine, lady lysergic, Robbie Fowlers and Mary Jane.

They made reference to Raul S Thompson (Hunter) in ‘Get him to the Greek’ with a substance called a Jeffrey, which funnily enough is the name of my father-in-law who has plenty fun stories about 60’s and 70’s alt-culture. Well, it cannot be equated completely, but if one manifests oneself as the big daddy of abominations regarding debauchery tinged with copious levels of psychedelics:

I won’t recommend embarking on said journey without some hesitation and building up of tolerance (more of that later), seeing as the mix of the haunting henry of good morning horribles from that Remembrance Day flower suffused in rice wine (I’m deathly serious) kicks harder than a Jeffrey-ed mule. Add 61.6 mics dropped on the afterbirth of the scurf in your fevered dreams and you might conceive as to how the following songs were constructed, or perhaps enjoy them as much as I did. Tolerance, is the one underlying, overarching and interlinked theme here.

BYONOISEGENERATOR (RUSSIA) – 5mgInspiredVibes– 31 October 2023

These Russian jazz-grinders took the thought experiment of what Clowncore would sound like if infused with angle-grinding…

…melded into an accipitral aberrancy benastied into birthstunned candescence.

https://www.facebook.com/byonoisegenerator/

https://byonoisegenerator.bandcamp.com/

Erusopxecinomeddetaeperhguorhtserisednamuhllafonoitacidarecitametsys (United States)– Gorging on Vital Energy – 21 October 2023

If this is common

knowledge, then I beg pardon

for stealing your (valuable) time.

However, I do wonder how many other great releases have been the result of collective and singular profligacy within a single year (there are many). Ah, but one of those releases is definitely worth a mention and I don’t think it has been on a list yet cos it is hard to miss…

Erusopxecinomeddetaeperhguorhtserisednamuhllafonoitacidarecitametsys (try writing that without looking up) – is just “Systematic Eradication of All Human Desires Through Repeated Demonic Exposure” spelled backwards thanks to our necessary purveyors of obstinate wickedness Inc. Super-long band names starting with an ‘E’ anyone? Kinda reminds one of Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum from 3 years ago.

Taking a straight 4 into V6 territory with marching band fills, a breath of fresh air on this cerebrum-conundrum(ming) album.

Figure 1 (I’ve been eyeing that sign for months, my photoshop kicked the bucket and well, I just couldn’t resist creating a bit of a mashup in MS. Paint regardless, because that logo is such an accurate representation of the music as well as reminding me of how my writing might seem to most people)

But guess what, their not so incognito member also released new stuff with 2, 10, 15… 23! other projects last year. If you thought Colin Marston has been a busy bee last year, multi-instrumentalist Jared Moran aka Cave Ritual, has done nothing but release new stuff. Spawning nearly 2 albums/EPs or splits a month, and that’s the twenty-three that I could find links for.

The link to the chosen song is below all the crusty mind-bending filth springing from Acausal Intrusion’s drummer/vocalist. If you’re not sure which one to click on and are very much married to what Metal-Archives deems to be metal… surprise yourself and click on the 13th link (Big Strut).

And the featured band:

https://bloodlusttowardsall.bandcamp.com/album/bloodlust-towards-all

<a href="https://bloodlusttowardsall.bandcamp.com/album/bloodlust-towards-all">Bloodlust Towards All by ERUSOPXECINOMEDDETAEPERHGUORHTSERISEDNAMUHLLAFONOITACIDARECITAMETSYS</a>

1. Esoctrilihum (France) – Païthas – 2 January 2023

Epistemologies eviscerated,

eventuating evocative Falstaffian façades.

If you felt that the 3 releases from Asthâghul didn’t really hit the spot last year (two full-lengths, one EP, numerous singles), simply rewind back to 2018 and people weren’t talking about Esoctrilihum’s Inhüma LP for reasons unknown. Perhaps because it was released on the 19th of October, perhaps they were still fairly unknown, yet Conchobar wrote a beautiful review for it HERE. 2 readers mentioned that album in their year-end lists yet almost no publications and zero lists on NCS had it on their year-end write-ups. A forgotten masterpiece. Still their best in my opinion, and if the ensepulchred catacombic conveyance of the organ vibes from Païthas are not your thing, then do yourself a favor and listen to this forgotten masterpiece of a song. (one of the best 3-song runs on any avant-garde or extreme metal album in general)

As I looked up the etymology for ‘harlequin’ something intriguing popped up. From the Oxford dictionary: “har·le·quin – /ˈhärləkwən/ From late 16th century obsolete French, earlier as Herlequin (or Hellequin), the name of the leader of a legendary troop of demon horsemen. And perhaps ultimately related to Old English Herla cyning ‘King Herla’, a mythical figure sometimes identified with Woden.”

Therefore, it is apt to see our love for myths, play and also the search for wisdom to be related in just one word which for me relates back to the avant-garde. Few acts have been able to light upon all those themes as well as Esoctrilihum has in the past few years.

https://esoctrilihum.bandcamp.com/album/funeral

https://esoctrilihum.bandcamp.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/09D139kQVvZ6lw03l4wNI7

<a href="https://esoctrilihum.bandcamp.com/album/funeral">Funeral by Esoctrilihum</a>

Nuclear Power Trio (United States) – Critical Bass Theory – 28 July 2023

I wrote the SCP foundation to get their input on whether our next song is listenable according to them:

“The civil service in the Secure Contain Protect Foundation is at a loss for an appropriate figure to use in responding to the Gimmick Manufacturing Union’s affirmative reply. In our utmost capacity connected with the conduct of this noble academic research under the banner of fun it will be in everyone’s best interest that neither the State’s Detective Branch commander nor the Investigation Directorate, nevertheless the Gimmick Manufacturing Union may deviate from the proposed bid on the implementation of the aforementioned scheme about the obliteration of at least 66.95176 fluid ounces of expired blood on Holy Friday – aptly and simultaneously named after the supreme god Odin’s wife and the Roman god of love.

“It is therefore our responsibility to hereby, in utmost good faith, empower our effective competence, resulting constitutional duty under statutory, contractual or any other legal obligation and say, yes brothers and sisters, listen to this next song.”

It also came with an integrally divaricated live performance from the last meeting of said power trio:

https://www.facebook.com/nuclearpowertrio

https://nuclearpowertrio.bandcamp.com/

<a href="https://nuclearpowertrio.bandcamp.com/album/wet-ass-plutonium">Wet Ass Plutonium by Nuclear Power Trio</a>

1. Blut Aus Nord (France) – The Endless Multitude – 25 August 2023

“Trepidatious vomitory assaults of mental acuity unrelenting in its voraciousness of greed for tempus. Turn the mirror around for this is what would be reflected on your present if a continuation of this toxic lament is to be allowed. The goal is then to muster in those gelid whisps of nigh waking states of clarity, that which most closely resembles the unnatural and fake sense of well-being we had before, the chemically induced one. Not much of anything was accomplished. Rather a false sense of security in the most insecure of times was fabricated.” – Elemental Scorned Taraxacum

Such an instant onslaught of offbeat unease. Quite a few people lamented their Memoria Vetusta leanings, others were pining for another 777. Well, we all know we can’t just hope for a band to replicate what they did before, we can, but we need to realize that staleness will enter the fray.

Vindsval and crew luckily always keep things freshly putrescent. With an outro just skirting the edges of dissonance enough that we can enjoy remission before the atmospheric assault commences again.

https://www.facebook.com/Vindsval.official

<a href="https://blutausnord.bandcamp.com/album/disharmonium-nahab">Disharmonium – Nahab by Blut Aus Nord</a>

Dødheimsgard (Norway) – Interstellar Nexus – 14 April 2023

There was no way that something off this release would not have made it into an iteration of infectious lists. Songs like Dødheimsgard’s Interstellar Nexus are at a level where one can start vicariously living through the earworm’s fractional perception of its host’s suspense in having been mesmerized. It is also connected somehow to musical preferences that seemed unpointed, with a fatalistic signature, and yes oh so Narayan-esque.

And one so badly wants to fall for opener Et Smelter’s gorgeous progressions into majesty, and It Does Not Follow will seduce the be-baby-jesus out of you with a bassline so sultry it makes this ((( 0 ))) collaboration seem almost just a little bit less dripping in appeal [no not that 0 ))) ]. This is a track which could be in contention for even being more transmissible than a ‘white death’ that jolts your soon to be dead spirit into some beautiful form of Requiem Aeternum.

Included below too is the phenomenal video of Abyss Perihelion Transit for which Peaceville and Vicotnik gave an explanation more solid and intriguing than anything I can come up with for the track I chose:

“The ten minutes plus track weaves a sombre tapestry incorporating elements of multiple sub genres in the world of Extreme Metal and thematically tackles ideas of epistemological dualism… The whole album revolves subjectively around perception, experience, psychology, objective/subjective reality vs external pressure, tropes, taboos, the laws of motion/causality which influences one’s life. The subjective perception of reality vs the objective causal effects of reality and how they are bound interact. Epistemological dualism. I guess mental health, or rather instead of health, let’s call it mental condition is a big topic on this record. Not as in a complaining way, or as a good or bad notion, but rather a subject’s study of his own psychology (en)during everything. Like the ambiguity of Being. What is Being? Is it a meta-physical stratum of subjective emotionally fuelled (sic) notions or is Being just explaining a physical object that is, therefore being. Epistemologically I guess these lyrics dwell a lot on naïve realism vs. representational realism. Cognitivism vs behaviourism, and then bringing it all to an artist context obviously. So, it is experiential renditioning, not solution driven.”

https://www.facebook.com/DODHEIMSGARD/

https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/black-medium-current

<a href="https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/black-medium-current">Black Medium Current by Dodheimsgard</a>

Vertebra Atlantis (Italy) – In Starlike Ancient Eyes – 20 October 2023

The illustrious Gabriele Gramaglia was always gonna be on this list.

Don’t start listening to this album on a mixer with expensive speakers sans knowledge that Yes, that pop sound was part of the mix… goddamn, I almost thought I was straining my buddy’s system that he allowed me to recklessly use while they’re on holiday. While the cat’s away the mouse’s at play…

And though there are other songs more vaunted and pushed, the offbeats and mid- to slower-paced fills are what keep your interest piqued just that bit more. That’s if for some reason you weren’t entranced by the repetitive transcendental and incommensurable menagerie of lurid gossamer chordage incarnate, luminescing.

https://www.facebook.com/vertebratlantis

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-dialogue-with-the-eeriest-sublime

<a href="https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-dialogue-with-the-eeriest-sublime">A Dialogue With The Eeriest Sublime by VERTEBRA ATLANTIS</a>

P.S. Disclaimer: I for one abhor the new trend of people using AI to write any shite. My students have started using it and sure one day these engines might become so sophisticated that we cannot tell the difference, but for now, I can tell. Therefore, if you felt that any of the installments produced by yours truly had something to do with AI, rest assured that I’d rather be caught pulling a Carradine (yes, legend and so apols for the gallows humor) than debasing myself with a language generator.

Here is the YouTube playlist of the songs listed (Unfortunately the Erusopxecinomeddetaeperhguorhtserisednamuhllafonoitacidarecitametsys track is not on YouTube so it is the whole album, apologies):

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