Rapid Fire Reviews: Experimental Metal

Before we even get into this, I know. Most metalheads definition of experimental metal is some of the most crushing, brutal and flat out disturbing hardcore and extreme musical genres humans have ever conceived. Keep in mind that I'm an indie dweeb more obsessed with ambient tones than layers of throttling satanic harrowing shrills. I love genres like extreme death metal and technical hardcore as much as any good critic but what I mean here is more of a sense of metal crossing over with non-metal experimental music. Ambient, electronica and even indie and psychedelia are included between the shredding riffs and screamed vocals on this list. At some point in the future I will surely cover the new Corpsegrinder solo album don't you worry, but for now here are some alternative and experimental metal albums that have grabbed my attention recently. 

Enemy Of Love - The Body & OAA

Ever since The Body released I've Seen All I Need To See last year and it absolutely blew me away I've kept up with their prolific series of releases and collaborations more than normal. So not all that long after releasing an experimental folk collaboration with Big Brave last year they announced this collab record with industrial electronic producer CAA. I had no real idea what to expect from the project other than something uniquely crazy and that is pretty much exactly what we got. Parts of the record particularly in the first half share some pretty consistent trademarks of The Body's music. The rumbling distortion absolutely indistinguishable screams and distant booming percussion get mixed in with flashes of glitchy sounds here and there but for the most part it is just that callous noise metal we've come to expect. Starting with the 4th song in the tracklist Fortified Tower and carrying on through pretty much the rest of the record the well of insanity is broken open and this record starts to throw all kinds of stuff at you. Highlights like Conspiracy Privilege have a metallic industrial clang to their soundscapes that add a lot of texture to the record. The single that really stood out to me and is still probably my favorite song here is Barren Of Joy an insane fusion of descending synth lines with the insane gruff vocals and splattered crushing instrumental passages. It makes me physically ill but in a positive way and I love that. If there's any complaint I have about this record it is just in the inconsistency brought on by how often songs breakdown and return to some of the same tricks. Even tracks I really like often spend a not insignificant time working through passages that sound extremely similar to every other song here and as a result some fail to stand out. I think the band does a pretty good job of remedying that by making sure you never spend too long in one style and delivering a constantly in the moment listening experience. This may not be my favorite thing The Body has ever done but it's an experiment that's certainly worth hearing. 7/10 

Timewave Zero - Blood Incantation

Blood Incantation are a death metal band that I was turned onto a few years ago on their album Hidden History Of The Human Race. Their style of death metal really appealed to me as they dabble in dozens of other sounds and styles mixing that brutality into some occasionally very sparse and more often very technical passages. This willingness to push the genre in new directions got my attention and I kept paying attention to the band going forward. I was pretty exciting when they announced this project, a purely ambient record, because I was curious about what direction they would take it in. I wouldn't exactly describe Timewave Zero as dark ambient, it's tone is more alien and slightly surreal than disturbing or isolated. The creaky groans and spacious clanging sound like the background tone of a spaceship from a movie but it still manages to develop in meaningful ways throughout. The album is made up of two long compositions both hovering around 20 minutes and both broken up into 4 movements. Unlike some ambient projects the movements here are actually significant because they do symbolize recognizable changes in the pieces. The first two movements of the first piece do get the album started with a pretty thick mix. The first movement utilizes a familiar but dense haze of distortion while the second movement opts for huge layers of keys placed on top of each other and stretching out into the background. The first piece tones down the grandiosity in it's second half and that translates into the second half quite nicely which is actually more sonically involved but simpler in its presentation. The wandering synth lines of it's opening movement really lean into the weird atmosphere of it all with distant drips and those intoxicating loops. Much of the rest of the composition works to slowly deteriorate this but it's less in a Disintegration Loops kind of deterioration and more just the slow creeping in of a musical fog that makes it harder and harder to distinguish details. The only issue I have with this is the pacing, rather than feeling like a steady decline that I can really get completely lost in it spends a lot of time just lingering and then rapidly finishes off its decline right before the end. Both the songs on Timewave Zero get off to a pretty good start but neither quite sticks the landing in the satisfying way a great ambient record does. While they certainly have the interesting soundplay down I wish it felt like they were doing something a bit more purposeful with it. Regardless I enjoyed this more than I didn't and it's certainly worth hearing for ambient fans as a band from outside the genres typical scope taking on the format. 6.5/10

Zeal & Ardor - Zeal & Ardor

Zeal & Ardor is an experimental black metal fusion project that, like most cool new metal bands, I was late to come around on. 2018's Stranger Fruit was the first Zeal & Ardor record I heard and while I wasn't crazy about it at first it's definitely grown on me. The politically charged Wake Of A Nation EP in 2020 helped quite a bit in that turnaround as did a few of the singles in the lead up to this record. Even though I liked some of them they were an inconsistent bunch and I was surprised to see this record fail to receive the same rapturous acclaim of its predecessor. I think some of that may be due to the genre fusions here being less so the type that makes critics drool and more so the type that take a few listens to grow on your. Not that every song here fits that bold because there are both some instantly satisfying and seething moments of metal rage and also some much tackier early 2000's rock influences that haven't grown on me a it with repeat listens. The album certainly isn't bad by any means it has some absolutely gripping highlights some of which adhere more to black metal styles while others take a more blues rock approach. It's really just the inconsistencies in songwriting and the sonic whiplash you get from how much the tracklist jumps around that's hard to digest at points. While I can't totally prove this I also feel like some of the social commentary has been dialed back a little bit or at least just simplified to a more digestible and understandable measure. Maybe that's a reductive argument but the journey to diagnosing what exactly all these songs were trying to say wasn't quite as compelling as it had been on previous Zeal & Ardor records. I have no doubt that Manuel will continue to make interesting genre fusions and compelling songs in the future but as a full album statement this just isn't my favorite selection he's made to far. 6/10

For more metal check out my review of Krallice's Crystalline Exhaustion here