Truly disorientating – 92%
we hope you die, April 23rd, 2021
Shub Niggurath – as the name suggests – were a Lovecraftian death metal outfit from Mexico. Whilst most of us in the North Atlantic axis understand Mexican death metal by way of The Chasm, this is a very different entity. Although their output was scant in their 90s iteration, the full length they did manage – 1997’s ‘The Kinglike Celebration (Final Aeon on Earth)’ – is an impressively mature piece of work. In mixing the disorientating, angular riffing of early forms of dissonant death metal with occultist black metal, we get a wicked concoction of immersive and abrasive music.
The production is relatively rich for the mid-1990s. Drums still carry a raw and organic sound to them, which means some of the technical nuances are lost beneath the guitars at times, but there is more than enough visibility to appreciate the off kilter, stop/start rhythmic play of the percussion. Guitars definitely sit within the death metal camp in terms of tone, despite many riffs being borrowed from orchestral styles of black metal. They are accompanied by subtle yet imposing keyboard lines which crop up during the slower passages where the listener is permitted to catch their breath. Vocals are an aggressive snarl that works well for this genre bridging style. They are covered in the obligatory chasmic reverb, but not to the excesses on display in many modern releases, only enough to give the mix size and breadth.
The reason this album stands out is largely down to the idiosyncratic arrangements. There are straightforward moments of atonal death metal, with even some more basic thrash riffs thrown in for good measure. These are supplemented by tritone based riffs that lend it that all important occult vibe, along with some of the angular, disorientating riff chaos that would define the likes of early Nile. In lesser hands this would be called a riff salad. But here, supplemented by drums that never seem to sit on a comfortable, easy to follow rhythm, the alienating, constantly shifting musical centre – both tonally and rhythmically – carries with it a degree of intentionality. It’s as if the end goal of this album was to unsettle the listener on both an intellectual level – i.e., our typical expectations of how passages should resolve or lead into one another – and on an emotional level, with the sheer, all encompassing chaos of the overall delivery. There sits a conductor above the bedlam however, organising the fragments into a teleological order.
Solos frequently jump out of the fray. They are usually a textural phenomenon, entirely without musical properties. But in the instances when they do reach for a melodic character they sound almost out of tune when set against the ever shifting goal posts of the music’s centre. This further alienates the listener. Riffs are introduced and evolved, only for them to be shifted and warped in ways that thwart our common expectation of what musical development should look like; Shub Niggurath are notable in this regard even amongst death metal bands where such techniques are more common. Such an approach is entirely fitting given the themes that they are exploring however.
The album goes beyond sounding merely “evil” or inhuman, and seeks to toy with our perception of the music itself. This meta commentary is far more effective than merely suggesting moods through the selection of timbre or conventional minor key melodies. For this reason Shub Niggurath stand out amongst the many examples of occult metal in that they are showing us their outlook and not telling us about it. It’s not just individual musical properties and aesthetics that communicate the intent of the music to us, it is the entire arrangement and playing style that compounds over the course of the album into a collection of near unknowable and horrific phantasms.
Originally published at Hate Meditations
rafazardly 