NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM — Éons (review)

Album · 2020 · Drone Metal

4/5 · 2021-12-16
siLLy puPPy

The recent years of experimental and bizarre crossover metal bands has exploded exponentially with Italy’s I, Voidhanger Records single-handedly leading the way. In the label’s decade plus long existence, they have introduced the world to bands such as Mare Cognitum, Spectral Lore, Esoctrilihum, Howls of Ebb and a vast number of underground cult metal artists. Here is one more that incorporates aspects of metal in its strange tapestry of musical mishmashes but remains utterly unclassifiable as to what it is.

NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM comes from Brussels, Belgium and was created in 2018 by multi-instrumentalist Guillaume Cazalet (Czlt, Jenny Torse, Aksu), who brought together veteran saxophonist Jean Jacques Duerinckx (Ze Zorgs) and two drummers, Sebastien Schmit (K-Branding) and Pierre Arese (Aksu). In 2020, Stephane FDL and Lukas Bouchenot took the drums. Reshma Goolamy (bass), Romain Martini (guitar), Alice Thiel (synths, guitar), Joaquin Bermudez (saz, setar), Didié Nietzche (soundscapes) and Leslie V. (black magic scenography) joined in 2019, thus changing the band into a real drone orchestra.

ÉONS is the band’s debut and to call this work ambitious would be an understatement. First of all these guys are serious about their music, so serious that for a debut they released a massive sprawling opus that runs over 128 minutes long which requires three CDs to capture. In the truest sense of the avant-garde and experimental, the album cover art gives away a bit of the transcendental soundscapes that lurk about on this one. Very much in the world of tribal and ritualistic trance, ÉONS is is based on a tribal ambient meets drone metal template and then precedes to add avant-jazz, psychedelic rock and post-metal over the rather linear martial rhythms.

While somewhat based on a steady stream of consciousness the 16 tracks that celebrate astro-mythologies deviate from the underlying musical procession by adding complex layers of saxophone based spiritual jazz, bouts of brutal prog workouts, vocal chanting and tribal drumming circles. Add some electronica, some tribal operatic vocals, a Magma-esque bass groove that evokes the otherworldliness of zeuhl martial rhythms and suffocating atmospheres and you know you’re in for a wild ride with this one. Dedicating over two hours of you life for a debut album is a tall demand to be sure but somehow NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM have crafted an epic sounding array of soundscapes that reel you in with a steady rhythmic groove and then offer a seemingly inexhaustible mix of the aforementioned musical styles.

Perhaps a bit too weird and too demanding for many to sit through but for those seeking those classic escapist routes in the vein of the most spaced out jazz of Sun Ra, the most kosmische freakery of early Krautrock or the myriad drone metal bands a la Sunn O))) and a gazillion other bands in between then this will be right up your alley. Perfect for those time when you just want to zone out and take a transcendental journey into drifting soundscapes that follow logical processions but layer on countless variations of themes. While a triple discker may seem like too much of a commitment, there’s no rules that say you have to experience this entire album in one sitting like i did. Overall a cool and worthy slice of avant-garde freakery here. Might be way too long for many but i like it!

Come to think of it, this would’ve been a great soundtrack for the Conan The Barbarian film from the 1980s! Or a darker more tripped out sequel to the flick Koyaanisqatsi!