Dimentianon / Rigor Sardonicus - Amores Defunctus Tuus Mater
March 23 2008 at 09:10:33 AM
A split release from two of the NY undergrounds longest drudging bands, one honed to perfection, the other working on it, and both sharing a crucial member in guitarist J. Fogarazzo. Six tracks are dealt out evenly beginning with Dimentianon's skillful balancing of Black and Death Metal. Although rooted in a technically sound display of serrated melodies and almost fusion-like pairing of drum and bass, there are plenty of shrill intervals unleashed in between. This makes it harder to locate one defining influence, but also works toward a more engaging listen. The vocals, pallid but discernable screams, often trample on the band’s subtle dynamics. Overall, the music is better experienced in these small doses.
Shifting gears drastically, the duo (plus drum machine) of Rigor Sardonicus arrive in the form of a devouring e-chord, one of many ringing monstrously in absolute dismay. Doom? Funereal? Banal categories that imperfectly, unfairly cage the totality of effect. Rigor Sardonicus is the sound of the shape, is the shape and the space surrounding the low-end domain built from foundational acts like Thergothon, Hierophant and Esoteric: Of groaning argot rippling across a pool of ebon static; exploded maw drooling its pitch-shifted enmity into the well of imagination.
Try to picture what it might be like to hear a tumor speak and after coming that far, listening to one drink mud through a straw. Strings are gouged, moan and left to hover side by side, untouched within a misty otherness undisturbed by cymbals crashing the lordly tones of fear and dread, a rhythm that seems otherwise involuntary, intimidated into action by the rumble of underworld frequency. In another setting the artificial beats would likely give the show away. Not so here. That mechanical rattling, coldly jittering under enormous stress, is like its audience both activated and abused by the dark procession.
[Todd DePalma]
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