Review by Sandre the Giant
International project of chaos Zvylpwkua (your guess on pronunciation is as good as mine) have launched their deubt record of avantgarde, dissonant black/death metal ‘Anomalous Altrium’ through their own Bandcamp as well as a CD edition on Centipede Abyss. If you can’t get enough of music that sounds like the heat death of the universe crossed with the ambient sounds of the Mariana Trench, then this could be for you…
Opener ‘Aberrant Oscillation’ is an unsettling torrent of evil intensity; a cacophonous belch of cosmic horror in the form of furious drums, abyssal growls and the kind of guitar work you’d find riddling mathcore freaks like Psyopus. There’s something almost jazzy about the freeform songwriting; riffs never go where you think, the heaviness drops out to be replaced by disturbing industrial ambience near the end, but the entire process is suffocating. ‘The Court of Angular Space’ provides not only a perfect home for this kind of insanity, but another detour into disturbance with rolling drums clattering under uneasy cosmic interference, before ‘Nonpareil Prophet’ comes into focus with Portal-like blackness and ludicrous complexity. I’ve shared the video below, which matches the song’s bubbling madness in visual form.
‘Anomalous Atrium’ is a record that uses a person’s fear of the unknown, unease at things that seem off and general dislike of disorder and insanity to enhance its already mammoth musical achievements. A long time it has been since I heard something as singularly intense and crazed as ‘Archetypal’ whose quieter moments are almost more terrifying than its bludgeoning. I can’t even really put into words what is happening in ‘78000 Steps’, other than it sounds almost like a choir populated by The Great Old Ones, and the closing ‘Discordant Murmur’ somehow comes across as a slumbering dirge as well as rattling cacophony at the same time, which I do not understand at all.
Zvylpwkua have created an album that is as incomprehensible as their name, and yet it is a fascinating piece. ‘Anomalous Altrium’ is a truly dissonant record, not merely playing with the idea of atonal songwriting but disappearing into avantgarde and and even improvisational jazz to seek the uncomfortable and render it audible. A brilliantly challenging work.
https://www.facebook.com/zvylpwkua
https://zvylpwkua.bandcamp.com/releases
https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/music
The Killchain 