(NCS supporter and occasional contributor Old Man Windbreaker, who is prone to speak of himself using illeism, provides this guest review of the discography of San Francisco’s Botanist.)

Greetings, fellow Great Apes, Proboscideans, and Cetaceans. [Whales and Elephants like Metal, right?] Behold the insane Botanist, from the Verdant Realm. He is an eco-terrorist who lives amongst plants, plays something akin to Black Metal on Drums & Hammered-Dulcimer, and awaits/plots the demise of Humankind. He has produced one music release every year for the past three years. To know more, go to his site.

I: The Suicide Tree

Here is the first album, part of the 2011 debut release from the Botanist. The songs are typically fast and short, the whole album being only around half-an-hour long. But, they don’t invoke an ominous atmosphere in the imagination like Black Metal usually does. On the contrary, these songs are just weird, and often even uplifting. It reminds One of Elvenefris by Lykathea Aflame, because of the odd mix of aggression with melody.

The lyrics feature horrific descriptions of various species, imagined as soldiers in the Botanist’s campaign against humanity. That said, the lyrics are more amusing than horrifying to One, having been a student of biology in high school. Even the description of butterflies and moths as pillaging, raping, savage arseholes in ‘Lepidoptera’ only reminds One of the annoyance that they are when One is sitting in the balcony. Continue reading »