(written by Islander)
“Recommended for maniacs of wildest Pungent Stench, Pan.Thy.Monium, Disharmonic Orchestra, Phlebotomized, and domestic iconoclasts Xysma as well as the heyday of Amphetamine Reptile – this is what it sounds like After Gods!”
And that’s the head-scrambling “FFO” recommendation offered on behalf of Personal Records for the debut album from Finland’s Ligation that they will release on January 23rd. If you know anything about those other bands, it’s a wild combination to consider, but the music’s wild too — which probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, given that Ligation’s lineup includes members drawn from the ranks of Profetus, Convocation, Sum of R, and La Murga, among others.
How wild is it? You’re about to find out, through our premiere of a bamboozling track off the new album named “Eruption“.
Some of you (hopefully many of you) have already had a taste of what Ligation get up to, via their split releases over the last few years with Hail Conjurer and Gravavgrav, but it’s entirely fair to say they were just getting started on their boundary-warping forays into realms of death, doom, and experimental noise (though for latecomers, the new album includes the tracks from those splits as bonus songs).
The song we’re sharing today is indeed an eruption, but nothing so straight-forward as the top of a mountain coming off and hurling stone, fire, and toxic gas into the clouds. Oh, to be sure, the song’s initial riffing is both toxic and heated; the vocals sound like some fire god madly exulting over all the choking pyroclastic flows; and the drums and bass sound like what would happen if a volcano mastered its ejections in a rhythmic pump.
The music also sounds highly acidic, roiling and swarming in tones that seem capable of eating through steel and stone, and the drums furiously hammer as well as methodically pump. Segmented by thunderous hammer blows, the music also dismally oozes and insanely screams (the vocals insanely scream too), with only those industrialized beats providing something to hold onto.
But wait! There’s still more! As if some other band had elbowed this one out of the way, the music suddenly changes, all the beats gone, all the hair-raising vocals banished, replaced by eerily shimmering and mysteriously quivering frequencies. Maybe there are shivering and moaning strings in the mix, maybe dim horns, maybe a gasping beast too. It might make you think of an old phonograph record recorded by and for ghosts.
Here are some more words offered on behalf of Personal Records, which will probably make sense even based on just this one song:
Tracks move mischievously from one lewd & lurking part to another, piling on layers of disturbing darkness wrung fully from human hands, but always with a purpose and always with a direction. In fact, their songwriting could be characterized as gushing – virile in its throb, cathartic in its flow – with fractured shards of eerie half-melody snaking up and down their sonic shaft. A mess of idiosyncrasies and contradictions, crushed to a pulp and then gleefully stirred into rude, ever-angular shapes: LIGATION are truly in rarefied territory.
LIGATION are:
MN – vocals, drums, noise
MS – guitar
TI – bass
Personal Records will release After Gods on CD and digital formats. Find pre-order opportunities via the links below — and then, for damned sure, experience the album’s initial advance track, “Turmoil In Everest“, which features guest appearances by Janita (Poison Church) and Mervi (Frigid Winter) and a saxophone performance by Tony.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.personal-records.com/product/pre-order-ligation-after-gods-cd/
https://personal-records.bandcamp.com/album/after-gods
LIGATION:
https://ligation.bandcamp.com/
PERSONAL RECORDS:
https://www.facebook.com/personalrecords666/