(Andy Synn has some heavy music to share on this heavy Monday)
Last week was a busy one for new releases, that’s for sure, and I hope to be able to catch up with at least some of them as the month goes on.
The one that really stood out to me, however… or, at least, the one I was most looking forward to… was the brand new slab of soul-crushing sonic weight from Seattle-based back-breakers Nott (aka Tyler Campbell and Julia Geaman), as their last album, 2023’s Hiraeth, was undoubtedly one of the heaviest albums of the year, as well as being one of my favourite releases on a purely personal level.
And, wouldn’t you know it, they’re still just as inhumanly heavy – if not even more so – as ever.
If you’re not yet familiar with the band’s particularly pulverising brand of auditory punishment, then suffice it to say that Nott represent – to me, at least – the platonic form of “Deathcore” as its own distinctive thing… not just a subset of Death Metal or an offshoot of Hardcore, but a proper evolution and a fresh new branch on an already twisted family tree which practically demands a whole new taxonomy.
In practice you’ll experience this as a monstrous mix of colossal, down-tuned, down-tempo guitars and bleak, bone-chilling atmospherics reminiscent of Humanity’s Last Breath (“I Still Feel You Here”), blended with the abrasive, dissonant intensity of Nightmarer (“Under the Weight”) and the spiteful blastbeats and suffocating breakdowns of Black Tongue (“Show Me the End”) in a way which eschews standard song structures or straightforward hooks in favour of an approach that’s more about simply overwhelming the listener with wave after wave of grim, unforgiving weight.
And while this isn’t a huge shift from their previous album, the most significant difference is that – somehow – As All Is Undone is even darker and more oppressive in nature, adopting an even more dismal and desolate demeanour which recalls the slow-motion misery of Wells Valley or the tormented darkness of Triptykon.
These name-drops, of course, are not meant as an indictment of Nott as being in some way derivative of other artists – while I’m sure they have their influences, and would happily acknowledge them, they’re working to their own formula here – it’s more about recognising how the duo have managed to carve themselves out an exclusive little niche right at the nexus point of all these bands and their respective sub-styles, one where they can put their particular set of skills (Campbell cranking out an array of cripplingly heavy, jaggedly contorted riffs over the top of Geaman’s devastating display of raw power and rigid restraint) to best use.
This is perhaps most apparent during the album’s tent-pole title-track, around which the rest of the record rotates, whose claustrophobic atmospherics, stomping, strafing, stuttering guitars, and unnervingly infectious, anti-melodic undercurrents, all combine to create something greater than the mere sum of its parts, which refuses to fit neatly into any of the specific categories represented above (which is why, if the term “Deathcore” offends you, you might potentially consider the even more divisive “Doomcore” as an alternative).
If there’s one criticism/complaint I might tender (and when have you ever known me not to find at least something to complain about?) it’s that the ultimate finale of monstrous closer “To Be Without” feels like it’s missing something… not necessarily a sense of catharsis – the band have already been careful to disabuse any potential listeners of the idea that they might find any sort of comfort or release from their music – but a sense of climax, a final knock-out punch, a build to something just that little bit heavier (if such a thing were possible) that might serve as the proverbial straw that would truly break this metaphorical camel’s back.
That being said, even at a lean, mean, thirty four minutes and change, As All Is Undone is already an almost overwhelming experience, so perhaps this really is one of those cases where less is more… because any more of this would probably be too much to handle!