When musicians behind acts like Act Of Entropy, Apothecary and Psionic Madness join forces, what would be the result? Indeed, sonic mania and psychotic noise.
We observe the Human is sleepless… and Laughter is Human…
This gathering of frenzy souls is called Ar’lyxkq’wr, and it is formed by three earthly entities that act under the monikers Jsïjiådsj - II (That Which Creates the Portal), Vhuwxg•⁹’kqx - I (That Which Feeds in the Portal), and Æýn’xjr’xz, - III (That Which Preserves the Portal). In a short period, they did release two EP’s, available digitally and physically via the new label The Centipede Abyss from the United Kingdom, called N’yxlwrr (digital + MCD + 7”EP) and the one which this review will focus on, Ss’unnhl.
This five-tracker brings forth aural malignancy, frantic and dissonant in essence, like a Lovecraftian avalanche of sound. And as cosmic-explosive as the cover-artwork, so is the audible result of these twenty-five dogmatic minutes. The compact-disc edition was very limited and did sell out in the meantime (I do not think the members will choose a repress, despite the enormous ‘need-to-have’; especially after having read this fine review, evidently, hahaha…).
I won’t add the song-names (the challenge is much bigger than pronouncing this project’s or the members’ moniker), but those titles too do reveal the disordered, apocalyptic approach. At the very same moment, it sounds ear-molesting and brain-devastating, as well as über-creative and ultra-explorative. The basic essence is built around discordant string-melodies and monstrous drum-salvos; the latter like an eruptional avalanche, a cataclysmic whirlwind of sulfur and stinking pus. This gets drenched in a thick and tarnished mud of wretched throat-rape (like lungs being pukes out with sardonic pleasure and infuriating satisfaction), and a well-balanced overload of additional four- and six-string madness / majesty. It has a very morbid atmosphere, being grinding, blackened and merciless, enriched by, and through, blasting excerpts in between the violent riffage and skull-crushing rhythm section. A couple of doomed fragments and the additional industrial excerpts intensify the morbific aura with a sarcastic grin.
Seen the members’ past and current outfits, one cannot but comprehend that Ar’lyxkq’wr’s material trespasses boundaries, destroys limitations, exceeds normality and ignores any form of moral, and aural, diplomacy. Yet despite the extremity that characterizes this disorientating recording, it combines Chaos with structure in a rare yet ingenious format. Inimical extra-terrestrial parasite-like creatures that would conquer our planet should use this as background-music while having breakfast (torn pieces of mammal flesh cooked in virginal blood – or something like that)… No, seriously, this kind of psychotic Death Metal might be preternatural in a mostly intolerant way.
For fans of, well, you know, that kind of belligerent schizophrenia in sonic form à la Impetuous Ritual, Tetragrammacide, Act Of Entropy, Portal, Abyssal, you know… Fascinating, captivating, masochistically sadistic too…
https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/ssunnhl
https://arlyxkqwr.bandcamp.com/album/ssunnhl