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.