AUTOKRATOR — Autokrator (review)

Album · 2015 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2022-03-29
siLLy puPPy

Caverncore is a term that has popped up in the last several years and refers to the reverb-drenched evil as fuck sound that comes from playing death metal in what sounds like an echo chamber. Portal first popularized this death metal curveball as far back as 2007 with its opus “Outre” but the style has its roots in the murky twisted death metal made popular by bands like Incantation and Immolation in the 1990s. In recent years bands like Grave Upheaval have taken this droning cesspool of noise decorated with death and doom to its seeming conclusion but this style of death metal is far from a fad and continues to attract new followers.

The Marseille based AUTOKRATOR is one such act that has latched onto the extremities of the caverncore section of the death metal world and gone totally batshit crazy. The moniker alone literally defines someone as a self-ruler and unrestrained by superiors. So too does that apply to the confines of musical expectations and in the process AUTOKRATOR which was founded in 2014 in Paris has continued to craft some of the noisiest and filthiest mix of death metal drenched with drones, industrial blackened bleakness and dark ambient sludge. The results equate to a true terrifying display of a death metal band gone mad and one that proudly sits in the same sonic stench as Portal, Antediluvian, Teitonblood and guitarist / bassist Loïc Fontaine’s other band NKVD.

To date AUTOKRATOR has released four noise fueled albums which all began with this eponymously titled 2015 release. This is a noisy monstrous beast indeed and ticks off all the suffocating qualities of what has been tagged caverncore or wind tunnel death metal. Owing as much to the world of lo-fi black metal as the death metal universe, this collection of eight ominous tracks takes you on a 34 minute journey into the world of sonic terror with death metal riffing being replaced by waves of oscillating feedback like a swarm of angry hornet demons descending on your very soul. The album actually conveys a theme of ancient Rome with the fourth track / act aptly titled “Autokrator” showcasing a war march percussive drive and spoken word declaration in Latin. The war march percussive drive is a theme oft revisited in AUTOKRATOR’s canon.

While blackened caverncore death metal could very easily become a stale one-trick pony, AUTOKRATOR finds subtle yet frightening ways to keep the stale card from being played. With just enough variation between amorphous feedback noise and bonafide death metal chord riffing along with various drumming gymnastics that range from war marches to blastbeats, AUTOKRATOR delivers a noisy yet competent diverse effect that while challenges the listener’s expectations, takes things into the deepest recesses of hell. One of the coolest aspects of AUTOKRATOR are the hellish vocals that sound like the spawn of Satan himself is coming to life through this bizarre and twisted noise ritual that summons the very recesses of the underworld and nurtures them into our 3D construct.

This is amongst the most extreme style of blackened death metal there is and for those who are averse to spawn of Satan styled vocals thrashing around in a pool of reverb-fueled distortion then it’s safe to say that this isn’t for you. This is like a sonic swirl of noise that in its gyrating effect crafts a strange gravitational pull that takes you into a bizarre unthinkable realm of chaos magic revealed in sonic form. It’s really hard to describe this but it’s basically rhythmic percussive hyper speed percussive drive engulfed by a chaotic explosive effect of distortion that finds eerie ambient effects and beastly samples inserted between outbursts. Personally i love this twisted shit and this AUTOKRATOR debut with its no compromise fuck it all approach has found away to allow just enough rhythmic patterns to latch onto while pummeling your soul with sheer terror. Awesome!