(written by Islander)
New Jersey-based Dead and Dripping has created macabre musical intersections of sensations that are ghastly, putrid, bludgeoning, and malicious, but also machine-precise, head-spinning, and dazzling (in a very demented way).
Anyone who has dabbled in Dead and Dripping’s three previous albums already knows this, but you will know it in spades when you have the chance to hear the new one, or even just the songs from it that have been disgorged so far, or even just the one we’re premiering today.
But before we get to the music, we ought to remind folks about Dead and Dripping’s wordplay, as revealed in the band’s perpetually twisted and luxuriously multisyllabic song titles.
That tradition of linguistic bamboozlement goes back to the earliest releases of this one-man crew (the man being Evan Daniele from Hackensack), and it’s perpetuated on the new album. Compared to the song titles, the album title is relatively brief (but effectively descriptive): Nefarious Scintillations. Compare that to the names of the two songs that have been revealed before today — “Horrifying Glimpses Into Inconceivably Demented Cityscapes” and “Seeping through Ancient Transdimensional Corridors“.
Or compare it to the album’s opening track which we’re now premiering: “Nefarious Scintillating Through Vacant Galactic Reservoirs“. Or hell, any of the others. Here’s the complete track list:
1. Nefariously Scintillating through Vacant Galactic Reservoirs
2. Horrifying Glimpses Into Inconceivably Demented Cityscapes
3. Pestilent Hints of Darkened Malodorous Vibrations
4. Swollen Torsos Adorned with Pustulating Hexagonal Crania
5. Sickeningly Vague Anatomical Silhouettes
6. Spontaneous Recollections of Unwitnessable Atrocity
7. Seeping through Ancient Transdimensional Corridors
8. An Utterly Tenantless World of Aeons-Long Death
If you want more fun along these lines, go to Metal-Archives and peruse the track lists of all the previous releases.
These sickening and surreal naming conventions would be enjoyable for twisted listeners such as ourselves without regard to the music, but what makes them even more impressive is how well they seem to line up with what happens in the songs — which leads us to “Nefarious Scintillating Through Vacant Galactic Reservoirs“.
This song is definitely surreal, especially in its opening collage of strange and unsettling sounds, and the croaking gutturals are definitely disgusting. But it’s also a dazzling whir of finely honed machine parts, a rapidly rushing and spider-fingered adventure of darting, skittering, and burbling fretwork that’s technically impressive… and impressively mad. Not to be outdone, the drumming is also impressive… and also crazed… unpredictable but also coherent.
As vicious and maniacally demented as the song is, it sounds exultant, like the joy of nearly spinning out of control. It’s also brutal, delivering gnashing bites, gut-punching slugs, and skull-cracking strikes (though even then the guitars squeal and squirm). And it also sounds like a swarm of very busy carnivorous insects, or like the soundtrack to nerves convulsing in spasms.
As icing on this paranormal cake, Dead and Dripping send the song to an electrifying zenith with a freaked-out guitar solo that’s probably the most head-spinning spectacle of the whole song — and it’s also surreal and hallucinatory.
Evan Daniele did everything on the album, and he also made the fantastic cover art.
The album will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on November 28th. As usual, T.O. is offering it on a multitude of formats and with a multitude of related merch, all of which you can explore via the links below. They recommend it for fans of Demilich, Wicked Innocence, Wormed, Defeated Sanity, Mortal Decay, Fathomless Ritual, and Suffocation.
Look further down and you’ll see we’ve also included streams of those two previously released songs from the album, “Horrifying Glimpses Into Inconceivably Demented Cityscapes” and “Seeping through Ancient Transdimensional Corridors“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://deadanddrippingus.bandcamp.com/album/nefarious-scintillations
http://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
http://eu.tometal.com/
DEAD AND DRIPPING:
https://facebook.com/DeDnDrPnG69
https://instagram.com/dead_and_dripping