(written by Islander)
This is something of a very long-awaited reunion for us. It was almost exactly 11 years ago that I became captivated by an album named permeate by a band from Slovakia named holotropic, an album that I briefly summed up as “a blend of technical death metal, progressive metal, jazz, Eastern melody, and crazy shit.”
That permeate album was very well-received both in the band’s home and abroad, and they supported it with performances in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary. As time passed, the band’s lineup also changed, and currently members and ex-members of bands such as 0N0, God Defamer, and Catastrofy can be seen performing on stage with them. And while the time that has passed since holotropic’s last release has been significant, they did not stop writing new music, some of which they’ve incorporated into their setlists.
At last, the band are ready to release new songs. We’re told that they recently finished recording material for what should have been a shorter EP but in the end turned out to be 30+ minutes of music, and what we have for you today is an excellent sign of their achievements — the video premiere of the first part of a tripartite song named “in_dividual“.
(By the way, although my English training tells me to capitalize proper names and titles, I’ll defer to the band’s tendencies not to do that — except in this post title).
In the first part of this song (“Animal“), the music does viciously charge like a massive beast, surging with brutal jolting power as the drums hammer with a pulse all their own. But the guitars also feverishly sear, squirm, and pulsate, driving the song into an exhilarating kind of madness just in time for savage growls and rabid screams to make their entrance.
Further fleet-fingered fretwork frenzies and rapidly thrumming bass notes spice up the mayhem, but the vocals surprisingly transform into soaring song. The technically precise but largely unpredictable riffing and manic leads, coupled with equally rapid-fire drumwork changes, will give your heads a continuing series of swift spins, and the vocals somehow reach even greater fever-pitches of violent, screaming derangement — but the singing returns too.
“Kaleidoscopic” seems too tame a word for the song, and yet it also includes captivating melodic through-lines, hard-slugging body-blows, and a very strange finale in which darting strings embellish abrasive pulsations.
As you’ll see, the video is suitably head-spinning too, though we’re also including a Bandcamp stream of the track after the video. Hang on to something firm and listen to the first Part of “in_dividual” now:
We also want to say a few words — just a few hints — about what happens in the two Parts of “in_dividual” that follow what you can now hear.
That strange finale of “Animal” leads into the song’s second phase, which is even more destructively decimating and bludgeoning than the first Part, but it also includes the vibrant squalling and screaming of a saxophone (or something that sounds like one), which turns the music into a fiery spectacle.
And in the third phase, a long instrumental phase, things also get cosmic and hallucinatory, futuristic and alien; a spoken-word sample from a speech (which I think is Alan Watts) joins in, providing a message that the surrounding music suits very well.
But you’ll have to wait to hear the next two parts for yourselves. It will be worth the wait.
holotropic line-up:
Vladimír Mikuláš – vocals, samples
Kamil Adamík – guitars, synths
Alexander Sucháček – guitars
Rastislav Molnár – bass guitar
Janko Hutka – drums
CREDITS: The main visual was created by nikto and a collaboration with the band itself. Recording, sound engineering, and production were handled by Jakub Hríbik at PULP Studio, with mastering duties handled by Alexander Vatagin. The project was supported by public funding from the Slovak Arts Council.
holotropic’s music is recommended FFO: Between the Buried and Me, Rivers of Nihil, Cynic, The Contortionist, Disillusion, and The Faceless. For more info, see the links below.
HOLOTROPIC LINKS:
https://linktr.ee/holotropic.band
Bandcamp: https://holotropicband.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holotropic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holotropic_band
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2PUtdF1AiZHVwGJ0tQG77x