Reviewed by Slither (3/24/05):
Imagine my surprise when I peeled yet another layer off my to-be-reviewed pile and discovered the number two selection from my godlike Top 10 List of 2003. If memory serves it may have been my first actual submission to the site since I had not yet received a package of albums to review. Oh sweet nostalgia, your heady brew consumes my senses and throws the way-back machine into full reverse. Judging by the presence of both Ion Dissonance and Rune on my list from two years ago I had quite the high opinion of Tipton's little label and aside from some curious Necrophagist related rants originating at his desk I still hold the man and his business venture in high regard. Willowtip can always be counted on for something just outside the normal rules of engagement, and with the formalities disposed of, it seems I should get down to the business of evaluating Breathing is Irrelevant two years after the fact. Fear not loyal reader; though no case is too cold for this metal detective the outstanding album in question has been within close reach during our last two trips around the sun and I am fully prepared to level my Metal Judgment.
Much like this band's Canadian homeland, a majority of the spazzed out mathematical metal scene also remains largely a mystery for me. Bands like DEP never really clicked and Meshuggah continue to sound like an abomination conceived when free time and Nu-Metal got drunk at the last barn dance. However, I get Ion Dissonance. Along with their labelmates Rune, these northern masters of chaos took me by complete surprise and finally put a face on the overly technical style that seemed to lack humanity in the past. Breathing is Irrelevant extended the hand up I needed and yanked me willingly aboard the ship of madness for a ride which changed my view on music. With Ion Dissonance the aesthetic associated with this whole mathcore circus is not just a gimmick. In so many mediocre bands the kid holding the microphone seems to be screaming simply because that is the thing to do, he is supposed to be screaming. Bands of this ilk are wont to throw flourishes of nonsense willy nilly because that is how it's done. The whirling dervish imprisoned on this disc is a far more substantial animal and by the time track number two rolls around "The Bud Dwyer Effect" reveals the deadly serious nature of Gabriel McCaughry's gut spewing upheaval of entrails. The man truly sounds tortured, and backed by the unyielding punishment of JF Richard's jackhammer kit work, his unsettling lyrics find the material necessary to manifest within an unwary mind. "As a flower, she bloomed once her wrists were opened. I remember her scent, intoxicating. My communication with her was clearly enhanced. But her's was quickly fading, discontinued and frail." Finding malformed beauty like that anywhere outside an Acid Bath album is difficult work indeed but Breathing is Irrelevantis practically bursting at the seams with the stuff.
The balance between structure and pure nihilistic elation is conjured by two guitarists whose normal distortion has been replaced by the sound of pure steel rusting at a thousand times its normal rate and condensed into a gravely abrasion so present in the immaculate mix that escape is impossible. Integrity drips like venom from every riff and flows like acidic rain from a tornado during the a-tonal bridges of pure madness that would sound forced if this band were not so clearly in control of their monster. The blissful respite found in the last minute of "A Regular Dose of Azure" may mark the only time outside a Gorguts album a casual passerby could catch my moan just a little in thanks that the punishment if finally over. Two years later, breathing may be irrelevant but Ion Dissonance is still essential.
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