TRIFIXION (PIACENZA) — Abschurfungepoch (review)

TRIFIXION (PIACENZA) — Abschurfungepoch album cover

Album · 1995 · Avant-garde Metal

3.5/5 · 2016-01-04
siLLy puPPy

TRIFIXION has been a popular band name in the metal universe. In addition to the black metal act Inverted Trifixion, there have been at least five different bands who used the name by itself ranging from the black metal character from Summoning who would later call himself Trifixion of the Horned King to the death metal band from the UK, an early death/thrash band from Venezuela and to not only one but TWO bands from Italy. One emerged later in the 2000s as a traditional death metal band from Padua while this one that i’m reviewing emerged from Piacenza in the late 80s and quietly released a couple demos and only one full length album in 1995 that was and still is one of the most experimental and avant-garde metal albums ever to have hit the market. While i haven’t been able to track down any particular meaning for the name TRIFIXION, i have to assume that it was simply borrowed from the Deicide track off of “Legion.”

The band started back in 1988 and began playing typical death metal mixed with grindcore, but soon began to experiment with a whole palette of new sounds and created some quite distinct and bizarre mixes by the time they released their two self-produced demos “In The Light Of Horror” and “Sindrome Of A New Flesh” and finally their only official album ABSCHURFUNGEPOCH which was released on the equally obscure Ematofagia label. At the time of release the album was met with positive reviews by underground metal media of the day but quickly fell into obscurity for not conforming to the established rules that many sub genres of metal were undergoing in the mid-1990s.

In short, this album was just too weird and unfocused to attract any particular type of audience. While it’s possible that Mr Bungle could possibly have been the inspiration of the all-over-the-map approach to their juggling of musical genres, it also seems that their sound may have been influenced by other nonconformist acts such as Voivod or Celtic Frost from the 80s. The production is pretty lo-fi and the overall sound at least where the metal parts occur reminds me of Mr Bungle member Trey Spruance’s Faxed Head. This is one of those totally crazy albums that mixes extreme metal with psychedelia, folk, dark ambient amongst other stuff so a track by track description is mandatory because of the totally wild and unpredictable nature of the song structures that will surely please anyone who loves the likes of Mr Bungle, Unexpect, Sigh, Ephel Duath, Dødheimsgard or similar bands.

“Fear, Is All That I See“ (3:41) starts out immediately as a dark and atmospheric lo-fi behemoth with death metal growly vocals, a structured but avant-garde style of riffing with a touch of atmospheric keyboards adding an eeriness to the depressive aggression. The metal then alternates with snippets of clean vocal sections that act as a some kind of call and response. After a few cycles of that an ambient glow sustains itself as the metal drops out for a while and then thrashy guitars enter the scene and a metal eruption occurs and continues to end the song. Right off the bat we are treated to some of the strangest metal i’ve heard from the 90s.

“Cold Heaven” (6:15) starts off with a steady drum beat and some strange keyboards. A subdued fuzzy guitar joins in but this sounds more like new wave than metal! The guitars pick up a bit and then clean Gothic vocals join in. This sounds like a completely different band! The keyboards are very psychedelic and the song evolves into a much stranger world of psychedelic Gothic rock that is even joined in by a female vocal narration. Pretty cool but what happened to the metal?!!!

“Litanie" (3:45) takes us to another world all together. It starts off with an acoustic guitar that sounds a bit flamenco accompanied by clean vocals by several members that provide harmonic interplays. This is one of the weakest tracks on the album and at this point i’m really asking where the fucking metal is! Not that i don’t mind an all acoustic track thrown in on my extreme metal albums but this is really not very well done. It is generic and the vocals don’t suit the music in the least.

“World Called Truth” (4:37) ushers in another totally non-metal track with ambient new wave type keyboards, a slow tempo and a melancholic clean vocal style that sounds like a drunken Italian love song. This is where i begin asking myself why i bothered to track this album down and feel ripped off that the first track starts off as an avant-garde death metal album and then suddenly goes left field with one decent track and then two that just don’t cut the mustard. This is the case where TRIFIXIUM seemed to think they could juggle all these genres successfully and while i find the metal parts really exciting i can’t say i feel the same about these blotched attempts at psychedelic folk. Eventually there are some electric guitars that join in for the last 30 seconds. A very weird track but not in a good way.

“Immortal” (7:43) finally brings back the experimental death metal that i bought this album for. The growly vocals are back as is the bizarre avant guitar riffing. The atmospheric keyboards add the extra dimension of tension to the mix. This track jumps around adding psychedelic folk segments that alternate with the aggressive thrashy avant-guitar riffs. The drumming is in its own world as it has a jazzy techy way of meandering around the riffs. Then this really goes all over the place. Riffs change at any given moment, strange sound effects enter. This is one of the spaciest and most bizarre extreme metal tracks i’ve ever heard and proof that space metal is a viable candidate for a metal sub genre as this doesn’t know if it wants to be death metal, psychedelic space rock, folk or electronic madness.

“You Breed” (5:37) starts off with a jarring guitar distortion before bursting into fast and furious death metal riffing. Then the trippiest death metal growls i’ve ever heard punctuate the din in a furor followed by some kind of clean vocal folk chants with several members participating. The track then changes it up to a totally new thrashy stomping riff with another dissonant guitar chord sustaining over it. The drums then pick up, jangly guitar riffs alternate with black metal vocal shrieks. This track just wriggles around like a snake that got its head cut off going from one extreme style to another. Frantic, schizophrenic and laced with some sort of lysergic uppers!

“Abschurfungepoch” (3:12) starts off as a dark ambient type of death march. It is basically a rhythmic drum beat, ambient keyboards, death metal growls in the bass range with some other vocals in a higher range sounding like a tormented drunk bard singing on the floor as he tries to get up. Not metal but very dark and deranged.

This is definitely a unique album and while i do find it a pretty good listen, it is clear that some maturation in the melding of all these ideas needed to take place before an album of the quality of a Mr Bungle or Unexpect could occur. While i find “Fear, Is All I See,” “Immortal” and “You Breed” are extremely inventive tracks that are as unpredictable as Lady Gaga’s fashion statements, the two slower tracks “Litanie” and “World Called Truth” are totally forgettable while the remaining tracks are decent. While this album lacks in consistency it delivers the goods in its sheer audacity to go where no death metal band has gone before and although this may not be one of those long lost masterpieces lost in the vaults that we all hope will emerge due to the fact that the results of the experimentation doesn’t always match the ambition (especially in the drumming department at times), this is still a pretty cool obscurity of 90s extreme metal that shouldn’t be missed by those who crave the peculiar anomalies that are still lurking about. The strongest tracks more than are worth the price of admission.