siLLy puPPy After a lengthy hiatus that found a whopping elapse of 13 years since its last full length album, the mighty MITOCHRONDRION has resurrected itself from a self-imposed slumber and slithered out of its hibernation chambers to unleash the third installment of its brutal bantering discography. While the band dropped an EP in 2013 and a split in 2016 showing continued signs of life, unexpectedly and turbulently this Victoria, BC based band has unleashed a massive sprawling double disc release in 2024 in the form of VITRISEPTOME. Delivering another esoteric and mysterious album title, this word like its predecessors “Archaeaeon” and “Parasignosis” has emerged like a linguistic Frankenstein of the band’s own making. Breaking down into the logical components, VITRI- possibly refers to the legit “vitic” which means relating to, resembling or having the nature of glass. SEPT most likely signifies the number seven whereas the TOME part could possibly refer to a book or set of books of several volumes featured in a scholarly fashion. So logically perhaps a “Seven Volume Tome In Glass?”

Whatever the fuck it means, VITRISEPTOME is a behemoth of a musical monstrosity that features 17 ear shattering tracks that sprawl on to a whopping one hour and 25 minutes! That’s a tall order for a band that consistently delivers some of the most frightening and energetic displays of technical disso-death metal in the modern realms of the ever-expanding universe of extreme metal’s most popular nook. So what’s new with MITOCHONDRION you ask? Well, dare i say melody? This band’s past is one of murky nebulous swells of sound that conjure up demonic forces that deliver astral terror. In many ways the band returns with a sound that’s business as usual with the expected rampaging guitar riffs distorted to kingdom come accompanied by blitzkrieg percussion gymnastics in a crushing cacophony that blurs the distinction between black metal, death metal and the avant-garde. Also once again MITOCHONDRION delivers hefty doses of preternatural aural assaults bedecked with ample touches of Lovecraftian surrealism.

VITRISEPTOME may resemble its heritage in the aforementioned carry over elements that make MITOCHONDRION sound like no other however beneath the dissonant display of bantering freneticism, this album is quite different in many ways with the most prominent feature being that of a more melodic approach that is implemented by the higher register guitar licks that accompany the brutal bombast of the rampaging riffing. Also notable is the more cavernous texture of the production and mixing which offers a more Portal-like effect that offers moments of pure blackened noise as heard on the combo back of “[ ]” and the title track which sound like an avalanche of amplifiers generating a feedback explosion. While the previous albums offered a more surreal blurry bleeding over of the instrumentation, VITRISEPTOME on the other hand delivers a more distinguished separation of guitars, bass and other elements such as the various tonal textures offered by such unorthodoxies as the timpani, flute, bone horn and singing bowl. As far as the guitars are concerned there is more of an old school Morbid Angel feel on many track with that classic guitar squealing effect emerging from the din. But don’t let these small details fool you. This is MITOCHONDRION raging on in fine form!

Despite the hour and a half playing time i found myself able to take in the entire shebang in one sitting and that’s saying something these days when i find many albums are tediously too long for their own good. Something about MITOCHONDRION’s multi-faceted delivery system that keeps things sounding uniform in style yet diverse in how the details define the sum of the parts. It’s a demanding listening experience but unlike previous efforts that only offered the gloomiest and doomiest musical excursions to be had, VITRISEPTOME feels like it adds a ray of light to the chaotic disso-death battlefield of instrumentation with digestible chunks of melodic victory prognosticating a triumphant outcome despite a bleak and seemingly hopeless outcome. Once again MITOCHONDRION successfully conveys a strange metaphysical scenario that while nebulous in nature offers a wild emotional ride through the incessant swarm of sonic entropy. Personally i still prefer the band’s first two albums as this one is less consistent in its overall effect despite in many ways pretty much following in the footsteps of the previous albums. I’m a bit underwhelmed that the band didn’t deliver 13 years of innovation however despite those nitpicky quibbles i have to say that VITRISEPTOME is still a freakin’ awesome display of 21st century techy blackened disso-death. For me just a smidge inferior to the band’s past but this very well could grow on me over time indeed.

siLLy puPPy Forged in the frigid northwestern North American enclave of Victoria, British Columbia, the dissonant birth pangs of MITOCHONDRION were spawned in 2003 by vocalist / guitarist Shawn Haché and a few other musicians who would jump ship before the band released its first powerhouse of disso-tech death metal madness of a debut titled “Archaeaeon” which not only rocked the house with subsequent connecting vowels but launched the band into the filthy grime of the latest trend in the world of death metal that has only grown uglier and more brutal in recent years. The band continued with a new lineup emanating as a power quartet of Haché and noise makers extraordinaire bassist / guitarist Nick Yankchuk along with drum abuser in the first degree Karl Godard. Add bassist Sebastian Montesi and Victoria, BC, Canada would never be the same.

Three years later after delivering a lightning bolt on the world of technical death metal, MITOCHONDRION returned with its equally devastating delivery of deathened order and chaos with PARASIGNOSIS, a term which has no inherent dictionary meaning but rather seems to have been invented to signify the esoteric and mysteria that the musical flow supplicates from the listener as the bantering swells of sonic disassociation overwhelm the senses with impending awe and utter despair. A somewhat shorter affair then its predecessor, PARASIGNOSIS nevertheless unleashes a near hour’s run of ominously dissonant guitar riffs that are monstrous in scope as well as embracing a simplicity of an oscillating electrical current. Bantering bass lines bleed into the distorted brutality while pummeling percussive gymnastics engulf the senses like a maddened demonic lusus naturae.

While “Archaeaeon” displayed a martial rhythmic procession into an insinuated battlefield whether that exist in the physical 3D construct of reality or a supposed spiritual ethereal realm, PARASIGNOSIS on the other hand offers a more jagged and less tangible navigation through its nine tracks that wend and wind through various electrifying motifs and cranial crushing cadences flowing like an engorged raging torrent of liquid in a disastrous flood sweeping away anything or anyone that stands in its way. Once again the atmospheric backdrop adds a melodic less chaotic palette cleanser during the scant moments where the orotund uproar is quelled for a moment of respite which offer the sounds of the mandolin, bandoneon and John Cage inspired piano string avant-garde ending effects, all of which end the album’s run with “Kathenotheism” and “Untitled” which are allowed to craft an eerie hallucinogenic counterpart to the ferocity of the otherwise incessantly raging rapid enthusiast’s guide to the world of 21st century disso-death.

MITOCHONDRION’s delivery system which blurs the distinction between death metal, black metal and the 20th century classical experimentalist’s avant-weird in many ways follows in the footsteps of both Deathspell Omega and Portal supplying a swath of influences and packing it all into massive swells of undulating sonic chunks with a suffocating production value that could land it in the so-called caverncore section of the difficult listening music section. Despite the modern metal hybridization trend, the grumbling growls of Haché keep the overall effect leashed in the death metal camp while the eerie atmospheres and spidery guitar antics point more to the extreme metal outsider’s realm where avant-chaos mongers like Gorguts, Gigan and Ulcerate have risen like necromancer monstrosities from the depths of the underworld. Similarly to the band’s debut effort, PARASIGNOSIS flows eminently well from beginning to the end with an uninterrupted stream of consciousness that demands a focused attention span throughout its run.

On par with its lauded debut, MITOCHRONDRION brought forth a veritable slice of top tier disso-death with its sophomore release which kept the band a few steps away from the more accessible realms of the ever-expanding spectrum of the death metal universe but continued to pioneer its way into its own mind blowing area of this strange new arena in the genre where pummeling brutality, technical wizardry and spectral surrealism collude to craft a paranormal multidimensional horror show with a touch of Lovecraftian ingenuity. For my liking and my insatiable appetite for this strange new world of atmospheric metaphysical extreme metal, MITOCHONDRION delivered the energetic flow of its bioelectrical namesake with pizzaz and bravado on PARASIGNOSIS thus offering a one two punch of near perfection on its mere two album run that would cease with this for an extended hiatus.

siLLy puPPy The Canadian MITOCHONDRION which got its start in Victoria, British Columbia in 2003 is amongst a new breed of dissonant death metal bands that has popped up since the late 1990s with the intent to craft dense ominous atmospheres as its primary focus and in the process incorporating myriad methodologies of extreme metal techniques to generate a chaotic and complex surrealist’s soundscape of otherworldly metallic bleakness. Founded by guitarist / vocalist Shawn Haché and guitarist / bassist / vocalist Nick Yanchuk along with early members bassist Nick Gibas, guitarist Mitch Aramenko and drummer Jesse Anderson, the band experienced the usual turmoil of lineup changes before settling as the four piece of Haché, Yanchuk, Godard and Gibas.

While following in the footsteps of bands like Portal, Gorguts, Ulcerate and Pyrrhon, MITOCHONDRION developed its own stylistic approach early on thus setting itself apart in significant ways. Primarily steeped in the world of chaotic and dissonant death metal, MITOCHONDRION spawned its first early convocation ARCHAEAEON in 2008 as a self-released limited edition of only 666 copies but due to the its rising popularity has since found the proper label support on the Dark Descent label which remastered this debut in 2011 and has reissued it with completely new cover artwork. The remastering was performed by none other than metal avant-gardist Colin Marston of Krallice, Dysrhythmia and Behold… The Arctopus fame. The music while more accessible than most of Marston’s output offers a plethora of metal stylistic approaches that deliver a turbulent descent into the an atmospheric yet intense metal encounter.

ARCHAEAEON successfully weaves together a tapestry of metallic savagery owing as much to the burgeoning modernities of technical death metal as it does the more continuous streamlined flow of the old school variety. Often compared to Deathspell Omega for delivering an order to chaos approach, the blackened avant-garde tones and bleak barbarity of the musical flow is undeniably intense in nature and yet utterly impossible to pigeonhole into an established subgenre of the metal universe. While chaotic and dissonant in the vein of Portal or Ulcerate, ARCHAEAEON delivers its descent into darkness in a martial stylistic approach akin to going to battle as if the band crafted its own metallic vision of some of the classical soundtrack moments on epic films such as The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. While many disso-death bands excel in complexities that offer curveball drifting into time signature rich frenzies or atmospheric abstractness, MITOCHONDRION delivers a fairly uniform rhythmic procession through the entire 71 1/2 minute run of ARCHAEAEON.

The band proves on this debut that it exhibits the perfect flow of consciousness that is punctuated by moments of atmospheric respite as well as delivering an incessant cascade of martial rhythmic guitar riffing, war metal style drumming techniques and moments of lead guitar soloing that offer more than enough variety to keep the entire album from stagnating even for a single track’s worth of playing time. The tracks are cohesive in how they interact from one to the next and the confluence of the death metal techniques with black metal and occasional doom metal excursions provides the perfect recipe for a well-crafted album’s worth of technical yet not too abstract strain of innovative death metal. It would not be an understatement to call the overall feel and mood of the album epic in scope and instrumental fortitude. The secret of the album’s appeal is that it never allows you to fall off the trajectory set forth. The incessant riffing and marital drumming styles keep you enthralled in the battle at hand and the excessive arsenal of variations that decorate the rhythmic flow are vast in scope and maintain a highly aggressive and satisfying delivery system.

This album was one of those love at first spin affairs but after a fair number of repeating attentive listening experiences it is also one that has a surprisingly satisfactory staying power as all the elements are so perfectly strewn about in a way that doesn’t allow your attention to drift off and destroy the momentum. MITOCHONDRION has proven itself to be one of the major players in the modern world of the new and varied extreme death metal varieties and this debut ARCHAEAEON showcases the band on full operational mode from the very initial opening “Chapter 11” on through to the 14-minute plus powerhouse “137 (Death’s Hedecaratia)” right down to the noise-ambient closer “Conclusion: Organum Exitus.” The band delivers a highly intellectual album based on the texts of Gnosticism and administers it all with a brash bravado of a seasoned extreme metal band that gracefully blends all its astute research of the metal universe into a cohesive whole of metal splendor. This band has risen quite high in my world and one listen to this complex behemoth of a debut should answer the question of why i have come to that conclusion. A brilliant beginning that was followed by the 2011 masterwork “Parasignosis.”