Dimentianon - Hossanas Norvus Ordo Seclurum
March 23 2008 at 09:12:39 AM
On their debut album, Long Island’s Dimentianon is once again in the tough spot of challenging some traditionally held notions of what it means to play extreme music in and around New York. Though flawed, the album is ambitious enough to gain sympathy and even turn some clichés to their advantage, backed up by the group’s strange morbidity (captured potently in an arrangement of bullet shells, red roses, pentagrams and flyers for dead friends’ funeral services shown on the back cover that reads cheap, sentimental and disquieting within a single glance). However, results here remain gravely mixed. Dimentianon have claimed an identity but seem unsure in which direction to take it.
The album is also heavily compromised by a cold, sterile production that renders instruments more as Black & Decker tools, rarely sparing even their more attractive movements. An uneven but ultimately satisfying closer which lasts a full third of the disc (“To Return that Which is Above to that Which is Below”) finally does achieve momentum inside an emotional crescendo—greatly elevated by bassist Jim Mroz’s bare-digit string work, injecting some humanity into the performance—and leaves us with a better impression than when they first started before fading into a ghostly contralto surrounded by thunder, wind and rain.
[Todd DePalma]
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