Friday, 11 June 2010

Disharmonic Orchestra







1st time I bumped into Disharmonic Orchestra coincided with the release of their debut Split with Pungent Stench which,if memory isn´t failing me,was one of Nuclear Blast´s 1st releases or maybe even the very first one(couldn´t be bothered to check this out)
...anyways,after having purchased said Split (at a time when Death/Grind was already a serious contender to usurp Thrash metal´s leading role as the ultimate,most extreme expression within the metal genre as a whole) I can´t really affirm that I was impressed by either Pungent stench or Disharmonic Orchestra - both seeemed 2nd rate(to say the least) to me when compared to say Death´s "Leprosy" or Napalm Death´s "From enslavement..." to name but two of those early death/grind albums which were absolutely consuming me at the time...well,in order not to make this very extensive lets move forward some months to the time Disharmonic´s "Expositionsprophylaxe" proper debut was released.
Now,this is a very different product altogether,I was instantly hooked by its intensity,extremity ,you name it.I still lump this together with a few selected early Death/grind classics such as Carnage´s "Dark recollections" or Cadaver´s "Hallucinating anxiety"etc,etc ... "Expositionsprophylaxe" was up to par with all its peers and managed to sound like nothing else at the same time.
Well, in between the relentless death/grind assault that was the "expositionsprophylaxe" debut there was already this quite "unorthodox" interpretation of the original death/grind sound,the use of unusual (for the genre)time signatures ,song arrangements and a general aura of weirdness (not only soundwise but also present in lyrics,image,artwork).This being said ,and moving on to its follow-up in the form of "Not to be undimensional conscious" (which unarguably represents their definitive album imo) I do not think that anything on its predecessors could have prepared the listener to what is to be found in the latter - A Milestone in Tech-Avant-garde-experimental-whatever Death Metal augmented by Tomas Skogsberg at the production helm
Tech-avant garde etc may lead one to think of studio trickery,overuse of keyboards , shitloads of effects,triggers,that emphasis on technical ability,the sort that makes an album sound like a random set of musical exercises as opposed to a cohesive,meaningful collection of songs ... well , think of Voivod´s "Nothingface" album as a reference point, that is the sort of "tech/avant-garde" we have in "not to be undimensional conscious".Fukk , this is getting long ...oh well , you have it all in here except the reunion album which I haven´t eevn heard but judging by the much anathematised "Pleasuredome" album which I enjoy a lot (Think of those albums such as Manes´"Vilosophe",Celtic Frost´s "Cold lake",Voivod´s "angelrat" and so forth) I suspect "Ahead" won´t truly be that "shocking" ... classic stuff ...
Jack-Up !!!!

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