SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IRREVERSIBLE MECHANISM, NEMOROUS, SATOR, WEFT, PITTS TWYFORD & SINGH, MORAL IMPLANT

(written by Islander)

Before I get to the music I’ve picked for this Saturday’s roundup I’d like to alert our followers to something that will happen on Monday, which will involve an appeal for your help.

It’s the time of year when our traditional year-end LISTMANIA series will slowly start lurching forward, building toward a frantic rush. Broadly speaking, it includes three segments: 1) our sharing of YE lists published at certain print mags and “big platform” websites, not because we’re endorsing them but because sometimes they’re useful and sometimes they’re laughable and they provide a gaze into how the broader surface-world of metal reacted to the year’s releases, and in all those way can be entertaining; 2) our posting of year-end lists assembled by our own writers and some special guests; and 3) the one thing I contribute to the exercise — my list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

That infectious song list is the last part of NCS LISTMANIA. I don’t usually begin rolling it out, bit by bit, until after the first of the New Year. But I start thinking about it much earlier. I keep a growing list of candidates all the way through the year based on what I’ve heard, but I don’t hear everything (who could?), and so part of what I always do to get ready for that list is to ask our visitors for their input, for their picks for the most infectious songs they heard that were released this year.

That’s what will happen on Monday, a post here asking for input, so please start thinking about it. But the comments to that Monday post will remain open, so you don’t necessarily have to be ready with your choices on Monday. And FYI, on December 1st I’ll also make a post inviting readers to share with everyone their lists of the year’s best metal releases; you can see that appeal from last year, and the 2024 YE lists it produced, HERE.

And now for the music. It’s a diverse collection, all of it new.

 

IRREVERSIBLE MECHANISM (Belarus)

Seven years after their last album the Belarusian head-spinners Irreversible Mechanism finally have a new album on the way. That’s very happy news for some of us around here, i.e., those of us who spilled digital ink in praise of their first two albums (writings collected here).

The new album’s name is Graviant, and the band will release it on December 12th. They released one of the new songs,”Cain’s Embrace“, last February (you can find the official video for it here); last month they released a second single, “Nocturnal Light” (video accessible here); and just yesterday they released a trippy video for a third single. It’s my first pick for today’s collection.

“Parasite Paradise” is a thrilling but bizarre musical adventure. It includes booming and back-busting low-end grooves, variable in their pacing, but spins up a multitude of piercing guitar and keyboard contortions around them which are both demented and dazzling, as well as dreamy cosmic synths.

Reverberating sung-vocals with a bit of post-punk influence carry the melody (a very catchy one), and they range from low to very high and very distraught, to the point of splintering into screams. The music and the vocals become psychedelic and surreal (especially the twisted guitar solo near the end) but the song is also formidably funky and deranged and destructive.

In a nutshell, it’s one hell of a wild ride, fascinating in its conception and skilled in its execution.

https://irreversiblemechanism.bandcamp.com/album/graviant
https://irreversiblemechanism.bigcartel.com
https://www.facebook.com/irreversiblemechanism

 

NEMOROUS (UK)

Following up their 2021 self-titled EP, the UK atmospheric black metal band Nemorous will release their debut album What Remains When Hope Has Failed on November 21st via Bindrune Recordings. My next pick for today is a video for the album’s stunning first single, “Quiescence“.

The acoustic opening of the song is very moody and melancholy, very much like the thoughts of a sad soul lying on the ground and gazing up at the trees that spread above in the video. A brightly darting violin arpeggio hints at greater energies to come, and come they do.

While the violins continue to feverishly frolic, the rest of the music rumbles, crashes, and clatters. The music also expands and becomes panoramic, but still melancholy in its mood, in tandem with tormented screams that have a jagged cutting edge. The riffing also skitters and throbs, slashes and blares, as the drums cut loose and the violins seem to trace trails of sorrow overhead.

Deathly growls join in, vehemently roaring; the music sweeps and wails, but also softens to make room for brightly lilting and brilliantly swirling guitars, and then surges again, with drums blasting and the music blanketing the song with dark clouds and anguished frenzies. That ebb and flow in the song persists as the track nears the end, creating alternating phases of magnificence and poignance, of mournfulness and hopefulness.

https://bindrunerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/what-remains-when-hope-has-failed
https://shop.bindrunerecordings.com/
https://www.facebook.com/NemorousUK/

 

SATOR (Italy)

Next up is the Italian sludge/doom band Sator and the first advance track from their forthcoming fifth album The Dying Light. The song’s name is “Mindfuck“, and it kind of is.

On the one hand, the song delivers surging guitar-and-bass riffs with the girth of redwoods and the weight of granite, big burly fuzz-bombed things that generate a powerful pulse. On the second hand, the vocals scream bloody murder and the drums vigorously clatter and hack the listener’s neck. At times the music sounds like a rumbling tank attack, at others like pile-drivers cracking rock, and at others like the blaring of bullhorns.

On the third hand, the band let loose freaked-out, ear-piercing guitar screeches and weirdly warbling fretwork. The pace also slows and lumbers, and the music miserably moans and feverishly screams, but the band gear up again for a blood-rushing, head-twisting finale. It’s a damned infectious song too.

The Dying Light will be released by the Dusktone label on December 12th. They offer this introduction to it:

The Dying Light is a dark album but a bit different from what Sator has offered us so far. This time hardcore blends with psychedelic melodies and powerful sludge/metal riffs, with frenetic accelerations and abrupt stops, creating an album that embraces and explores new sounds, taking you into a dark new dimension of volume, anger, and desperation.

https://dusktone.bandcamp.com/album/the-dying-light
https://www.facebook.com/SATORdoom/

 

WEFT (U.S.)

I hope you recognize the name Charlie Anderson. In case you don’t, he’s probably best known as a violinist, though he can play (and play very well) a lot of other instruments, and he can do vocals too. He is a long-time collaborator of Austin Lunn, both within Panopticon and in Austin’s solo efforts, and he has also contributed to albums by Waldgeflüster and Slumbering Sun, as well as performing live with Exulansis.

In addition to the foregoing, Charlie has a solo project named Weft, and Weft’s debut album The Splintered Oar is now set for release on December 19th via the same Bindrune Recordings that will release that Nemorous album up above. The album includes drumwork by Austin Lunn, violin and vocals by Andrea Morgan of Exulansis, and vocals on one song by Jordan Day. Charlie himself performs bass, guitars, vocals, strings, electric violin, synth, piano, and additional percussion.

The first sign of what the album brings us is a long song named “The Hull” that came out yesterday. To call it “multi-faceted” would be an understatement. To call it “astonishing” might be an understatement too.

It includes blast-beat torrents and the brightness of eerily wailing strings and flute-like tones that create a mystical and ancient mood. It further includes dramatic choral vocals that go sky-high (as does the music) and big booming beats, as well as beleaguered chords, ragged howls, scorching screams, and electrifying percussive fills.

The richly ornamented music (so many instruments! so many effects!) is the sound of a saga, like the elaborate soundtrack to a grand myth, both dark and resilient, with sounds of gloom, strenuous conflict, boiling tension, feverish distress, panoramic grandeur, jaw-dropping passion (especially in the spine-tingling intensity of some of the vocals), and gentler episodes of wistfulness and hopefulness, of mystery and wonder.

And this is just one song!

(By coincidence, I happen to be re-reading Homer’s The Odyssey. This song is a great soundtrack for that, too.)

https://bindrunerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/the-splintered-oar
https://shop.bindrunerecordings.com/
https://www.instagram.com/weft_music

 

PITTS, TWYFORD & SINGH (U.S.)

Our old friend and former NCS writer Austin Weber brought this next song to my attention, in part because he created the cover art for the song. As the band’s name suggests, it’s the work of three extremely talented musicians — Jimmy Pitts, Jerry Twyford, and Vishal J. Singh. The name of the song is “The Affinity Gambit“, and Pitts explains its genesis in these words:

The Affinity Gambit was originally conceived as part of the conceptual arc for The Fractured Dimension’s On the Precipice of Many Infinities, an album inspired by Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. In that storyline, this piece represented the pivotal moment when the would-be hero encounters an aged mentor and begins the process of learning, testing, and transformation.

Although the track ultimately did not appear on that album due to its distinct character and sonic direction, the conceptual spirit remains intact. Think of this piece as the introduction to a wise master and a gauntlet of daunting trials. The dissonance and technical ferocity reflect the uncertainty and struggle of early lessons, while the more serene middle section portrays the trust and understanding that gradually form between master and pupil. The return to chaos near the end reminds us that peace is often fleeting—new challenges are always waiting.

I was tempted to put this song right after that track from Irreversible Mechanism up above because this one is also a head-spinner, an extravagantly exuberant romp that includes relentlessly vibrant drumwork, off-planet high-end swirls, and loads of rapidly darting and ecstatically swirling fretwork, as well as gently pinging and strangely burbling tones and nuanced bass maneuvers.

And that’s not all! When the wailing vocals finally arrive, they’re an improvisation of Indian music by Kasturi Nath Singh, joined by a vivid instrumental which sounds like a saxophone cavorting and followed by a smooth, jazzy solo (can’t tell if that’s a guitar or a keyboard).

And well, there’s still more! But I don’t want to get tedious by attempting to continue mapping its intricate and multifariously toned course. It also kind of needs to be heard to be believed.

Did I mention that the drummer is the great Hannes Grossmann? I don’t think I did!

https://jimmypitts.bandcamp.com/track/the-affinity-gambit
https://www.facebook.com/thefractureddimension/
https://www.facebook.com/jimmy.pitts3

 

MORAL IMPLANT (Poland)

I’ve covered a lot of metal genres in this column so far, although to be honest some of them really aren’t easily classifiable in conventional genre terms. But there’s one genre form that’s gone missing so far — DEATH METAL! — so let’s fix that.

My final recommendation for today is Delusion, the debut EP from the Polish group Moral Implant (and man, I wish we could do a moral implant on lots of world leaders, including the one that’s currently running my country into the ground).

Delusion is a 6-track offering, one book-ended by eerie Intro and Outro tracks. The former includes the grand, ominous tones of a cathedral organ and what sounds like a convocation of demons and the screaming of its victims. In the latter, electronics weirdly writhe and slither, and some horrid thing seems to be hungrily gasping.

In between, Moral Implant inflict a changing array of pulverizing trauma, viciously churning frenzies, and guitar soloing that supernaturally swirls and convulses in seizures. The murderous rhythm guitars are caked in abrasive grit and generate dense and destructive miasmas of ruinous sound; the bass sounds like some immense subterranean upheavals in progress; and in contrast, the freaky soloing is acetylene bright and strangely reverberative.

The vocals are almost as horrifying as the music, ranging from beastly and bellowing gutturals to insane screams. Furthermore, the drumming is constantly in flux, going off in clattering flurries, blasting away, joining in with the stringed instruments to pile-drive listeners deep into the ground, and occasionally just ambling along, like a bemused bystander to a mass execution.

There’s something about these songs that is deeply macabre as well as ruthlessly slaughtering and abusively brain-scouring. Despite how tremendously corrosive the riffing is, you can still detect the strangeness of the contortions within, and of course you don’t need to pay close attention to detect the soloing as it burns your eyes out.

Delusion was released by Caligari Records just yesterday.

https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/delusion