Ignobleth — Manor of Primitive Anticreation (Caligari)
The title of Ignobleth’s new LP, Manor of Primitive Anticreation, suggests a literate death metal outfit nodding toward weird fictions’ Ur sources: the “manor” for Edgar Allan Poe’s near-obsessive attentions to built space and enclosure (that old House of Usher; the tight, gruesome crypts in “The Black Cat” and “Cast of Amontillado” and “The Premature Burial”; the long succession of elaborate rooms in “Masque of the Red Death”; and so on), and the “primitive anticreation” for H P Lovecraft’s ancient, impossible lifeforms. The music isn’t as mannered—forgive the pun—as Poe’s prose or quite as fantastical as Lovecraft’s interdimensional grotesques, but as death metal goes, Ignobleth makes some loathsome, writhing, richly pustulant noise, reaching toward musical complexity.
Check out “Warped Abyssal Architectures” (see what I mean about built space?), and you’ll get tuned in to the requisite sonic signals. Not quite as demented as Antediluvian, but deranged all the same; not quite as horizontally disorienting in its compositions as Acausal Intrusion’s songs, but dizzying and perverse at numerous points; attempting the same fusion of experimental freak-out with atavistic muscularity as Haunter achieved on its excellent Sacramental Death Qualia (2019)—Ignobleth seems equally attracted to spacey, esoteric weirdness and to death metal’s fleshy, feculent voluptuousness.
Perhaps the most effective songs on Manor of Primitive Anticreation are the two-track “Proselyte Pig” sequence. “Proselyte Pig I” is all thump and thunder, a growling, grueling piledriver of death metal in the “whirling chaos” mode. The vocals are cavernous, and the riffs are all visceral froth. “Proselyte Pig II” amps up the dread, stomping through its first two minutes with doomy deliberation. The rest of the song slips in and out of blasting passages and closes with a minute of purring, whirring electronics. The array of ideas seems contrived, and more than a little chaotic, but the band moves with conviction among them. They just about convince you.
When it comes down to a choice between aggro heaviness and maniacal complexity, Ignobleth errs toward the former, but the band’s investigations of distorted and disjoint forms augurs rich development. Or at least some ripe musical decomposition.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
âś“ Live Streamingâś“ Interactive Chatâś“ Private Showsâś“ HD Qualityâś“ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
