AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WINCE AND FRISSON — “TUMULT”

(written by Islander)

In February of this year we helped introduce listeners to Wince and Frisson, a “dissoblack and death metal” duo consisting of Triumvir Kaleido from North Carolina and Steve Wiener from New Jersey. In February we premiered a striking animated video created by Triumvir (who’s responsible for all of the band’s artwork) for the song “Kärrhäxan” from Wince and Frisson’s then-forthcoming debut album Tumult. What we’ve got for you today is a premiere stream of that album in its entirety in advance of its September 4 official release..

Wince and Frisson introduce the album with these words:

Tumult – a virulent cocktail of extreme metal genres. Seven tracks, all blackened and swathed in dissonance. It gets to the point immediately and offers no rest to the listener until its conclusion. All the while, guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Triumvir Kaleido maniacally spews warped interpretations of his experiences with religious and psychological abuse, and struggles with mental health.

But of course we have our introduction to what you’re about to hear.

Entirely in line with Triumvir’s above-quoted expression of the album’s lyrical themes, most of the album comes across as a musically violent form of catharsis, not necessarily one through which the artist has achieved purification, cleansing, or inner peace (because we have no insights about that), but as a primal channeling of trauma whose effects might be much worse if not given a liberating outlet like this. The album might also function as a cathartic medium for listeners too, especially if you’re feeling pain or rage, or both.

The idea of the music as a liberating catharsis derives in part from the name of the album opener, “Incantation of Liberation“, and in part because even that relatively brief first song feels like chains being thrown off and restraints blown away. Triumvir’s howls and screams are raw and explosive; the bursts of highly abrasive riffing feel like sandblasting; the percussion furiously rumbles, and even more furiously blasts. Even when the beats shift into a steadier rhythm, the dense churn of the riffing is skull-scouring.

Yet as decimating and belligerently anti-melodic as that churn is, the vibrant nimbleness of the bass is noticeable, and the guitars also seem to ecstatically writhe as well as viciously storm.

The afore-mentioned “Kärrhäxan” is also a no-holds-barred blast-front, but includes its own rhythmic twists and turns, as well as quick throbbing pulsations and frantically roiling fretwork with a searing tone and a convulsive energy.

Yet although the music’s virulence and violence are dominant throughout the album, slugging grooves are also a feature of the songs which help keep listeners on their toes. And Wince and Frisson find also find other ways to prevent these tracks from numbing the listener over time (including the appearance of guttural growls along with the cauterizing screams).

For example, despite the ongoing deranged fury of the vocals “Corpsehive” sounds dark and even dismal (and it punches damned hard too); it sounds as desperate as it does destructive, and it becomes strangely hallucinatory as well, while the staccato nature of the riffing and the jumping beats of “Eldritch Winnowing” do indeed create a diabolically eldritch atmosphere, one enhanced by start-stop swaths of miasma-like musical sheen.

For further variation, “Liftoach Pandemonium” descends into deep troughs of hopelessness. It sends cascades of sound that come in harsh, trem-picked sonic waves of seeming sorrow and abandonment above vividly booming beats, accented by peals of bell-like tone, and “Hypnagogic Haunt” incorporates twitchy, stitching riffage and swirls of frightful near-melody in the midst of boiling and blasting chaos that’s unnerving to hear.

“Enmeshed” closes Tumult in a way that deploys maniacal bursts of high-speed jolts and jabs to segment another boiling sea of gritty-and-acidic riffage, and it augments those crazed outbursts with equally feverish but somewhat off-kilter drumwork. It might be the most technically impressive track on the album, but one of the most lunatic ones too.

After 23 minutes the album finds a good place to end. Going on much longer might have turned it into an endurance contest for listeners. At that length, it’s exhilarating, and even frequently head-spinning — and yes, it does seem to trace a liberating journey, even though the trip includes emotionally crushing phases along the way.

And with that, we’ll step aside and leave you to experience all the Tumult for yourselves:

PRINCIPAL ALBUM CREDITS:
Triumvir Kaleido – guitars, bass, vocals, songwriter, visual art
Steve Wiener – drum programming, backing vocals, oddball instrumentation, producer, mixing, and mastering

ADDITIONAL CREDITS:
Jude Kerr – guest recorder on “Corpsehive”
Guitars, bass, piano splat, and Triumvir’s vocals recorded at Second Rise Studios
Drums programmed at The Hot Dog Factory
Steve’s performances engineered and recorded by Steve Wiener at The Hot Dog Factory
All artwork by Triumvir Kaleido

As mentioned, the album will be released on September 4th and can be acquired via the links below. Our friends at Fiadh Productions will also release the album on cassette tape at a later date.

ACQUIRE:
https://ampwall.com/a/winceandfrisson
https://winceandfrisson.bandcamp.com/album/tumult

FOLLOW:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/winceandfrisson
Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/winceandfrisson.bsky.social