Artist: Disembowelment
Label: Relapse Records
Release Date: 1993
Rating: 5 Skulls
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Title: Transcendence Into the Peripheral Artist: Disembowelment Label: Relapse Records Release Date: 1993
Rating: 5 Skulls |
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Reviewed by Requiem:
What makes a classic classic? I think one instant winning trait would be to completely create a new and exciting form of music unlike anything heard before. To do something that may not have impressed the masses, but to have certainly broken boundaries that a cult few would soon follow religiously. The death metal world, the doom metal world and myself were completely in shock upon first exposure to Disembowelment, Australia's answer to the doom/death genre. As if Winter had a jam session with Dead Can Dance, an enlivening new approach towards doom had just been born.Disembowelment's primary secret weapon was the heavy use of reverb on practically everything. As if the band were playing in a large cavern, their sound is huge, heavy and spacious. While having both an appreciation for heaviness and ethereal sounds, they incorporated many elements yet to be of value to the metal world. Atmospheric clean guitars, gregorian chant style vocals, cellos, Tibetan bells and female vocals made a suprisingly somber and distressing appeal to doom as we once knew it. They took slow parts and made them slower, took fast parts and made them faster, yet kept it all interesting. The guitars were tuned as low as humanly possible, and the death vocals were sickeningly perfect for their surroundings. From their abstract cover art to their innocent looking "d." design logo, nobody would expect to hear what lurked within. This was music to the suicide scene soundtrack.
"The Tree of Life and Death" starts out on both extremes. It begins with grinding guitars and blast beats and later proceeds a hypnotizing drone of heaviness exemplified by double bass, muted guitars and ethereal sounds. The vocals are agonizing and brutal, and much more effective than your average growler. "Your Prophetic Throne of Ivory" showcases the chanted vocals, which are accompanied by clean guitars drenched with reverb and chorus alongside sludge-paced walls of distortion. All elements combined display the effectiveness of their peculiar delivery. "Nightside of Eden" is a brief interlude from the hellish moments, with a dreamlike composition of clean guitars and female vocals. It's effectively fitting in its brash surroundings. "The Spirits of the Tall Hills" is my personal favorite which is a hypnotizing track with its clean guitars and steadily midpaced drum patterns, yet it twists and turns it's way through multiple personalities before its demise.
Transcendence Into the Peripheral is a journey into a trance inducing world of misery, hatred and disgust. It is the perfect clash between the brutal and ambient elements of music. It has too much character for many, but the perfect amount for the few fiendish souls that can see the underlying divine qualities. Wisconsin's Dusk and New Jersey's Evoken have effectively carried the torch and then some, while half of Disembowelment went onto more ambient project in the form of Trial of the Bow. Those who have appreciation for harsh, brutal music and yet can venture to the experimental likes of Dead Can Dance and the Cocteau Twins may find an invigorating new creation ahead of them here.
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