Beats and yelling: Slimelord’s disruptive interjection

Chytridiomycosis Relinquished
Out 8^th March on 20 Buck Spin

‘Chytridiomycosis Relinquished’ is what happens when overly active talents apply themselves to musical forms that tend to benefit from the sloppier touch, such as death/doom. Steered by the combined abilities of guitarist Xander Bradley, Bassist John Ridley, and drummer Ryan Sheperson of progressive death metal outfit Cryptic Shift, Slimelord was originally conceived as a neat, primitive counterpoint to the high minded technical soundscaping of their flagship project. But with three EPs now under their belts, Slimelord have organically grown into a more disruptive, restless entity than your average death/doom tackle.

It’s not simply a case of ‘Chytridiomycosis Relinquished’ being far more wide ranging or musically accomplished than the genre standard, it’s the fact that – and this is apparent even in Cryptic Shift – these musicians are chiefly concerned with crafting elongated and surrealist melodic tangents and noise art curiosities, using conventional techniques (i.e. chord sequences) more as glue to hold all these idiosyncrasies together as opposed to foundational building blocks.  

For Cryptic Shift, whilst the technical death metal terrain they operate in tends to reward information overload, a strong case could still be made for asking whether they would benefit from a greater focus on how the meta data stacks up. The Slimelord package, paradoxically, may shine a brighter light on the inner workings of these musicians. Chiefly the fact that for death metal musicians, they seem decidedly uninterested in using riffs as centrepieces in any way. Instead focusing on all manner of extra musical furniture to inject motion and form into these pieces, with traditional melodic or harmonic material deployed as mere framing devices.

For that reason the momentum of this album is highly atypical for death metal. Without warning the material lurches from an almost monomaniacal need to unpack a specific idea to utter incontinence. This ambiguity of purpose beyond a showcase hall for creative vignettes can be frustrating on first listen. It’s therefore worth stating – and I freely admit that this may be the Leodensian bias talking – that this is an album that really benefits from rapid repeat listens. Slimelord, specifically Bradley and Ridley as the main drivers of melodic content, are not your typical technically inclined death metal musicians. They have one eye on riffs for sure, but they are also very mindful of sound design, the use of noise, slides, dissonance, feedback, ambience, percussion, basically any means by which they can manipulate their instruments into expressing the language of death metal through deviant means, beyond the usual endless cycle of riffs.

But it would be a mischaracterisation to say this is avant-garde. It’s true that this album owes as much to Gorguts as it does Incantation or diSEMBOWELMENT. But it’s equally surprising to hear elements of sludge and post metal placed into a situation with drive and purpose, weaponised into framing devices for riffs that bend between unrelenting atonality and the unknowable tangents of late 90s Trey Azagthoth. But it is precisely in this synthesis that frustration bubbles beneath the need to continue listening. Slimelord are every bit as conscious of subverting the atmospheric norms of genre as they are of the diminishing importance of riff organisation within the compositional process. Even Ashworth’s vocals, despite remaining loyal to the industry standard of reverb drenched guttural howls, embraces collapse into arhythmical drone, contrasting formless noise with sharply defined rhythmic contours.

What can at first appear as one constantly unfolding cacophony of content quickly develops into a means of advancing the topography of a – let’s face it – rather stale genre. The cornerstone of Slimelord’s compositional approach is an ever shifting, ever opening complex of information, the structure and cohesion of which is forever in jeopardy, only occasionally threatening to coalesce. For example the main theme on ‘Splayed Mudscape’ receives only a brief recapitulation before being ditched in favour of entirely new and unprepared for material. The album is littered with such subversions, and for that reason contains delights as well as challenges for listeners well versed in this musical lineage.

Slimelord’s first EP ‘The Delta Death Sirens’ was a pleasing, atmospheric, primitive rebuttal to the dense aspirations of Cryptic Shift. But with subsequent EPs ‘Moss Contamination’ and ‘Insurmountable Peril’ I became increasingly convinced that there was just too much musical ability packed within this entity to effectively treat death/doom, it being the subgenre of death metal that benefits most from amateurism. Think the stripped back approach of Winter or Asphyx and the fact that through the austere efficiency of their contrasting approaches they end up short-circuiting their way to truly profound explorations of finality and decay.

With the long await debut ‘Chytridiomycosis Relinquished’, Slimelord have both proven me right and shown that it just doesn’t matter. The canvas they wish to paint on is very different to these artists. There is one eye on decay and drone as compositional tools within the doom metal armoury, but these are placed alongside dense terrains of jagged, razor sharp riff based material, capitalising on their antagonisms and contrasts in a manner transcending any minutia over technique or ability. As with any work disruptive to our preconceptions of artistic governance, it pleases as much as it frustrates. New angles confront the listener with each fresh spin. It raises many questions for those invested in this arena. And, perhaps most importantly of all, reminds us that despite how cluttered our content feeds have become, there are still limitless vistas of sonic territory yet to be uncovered.