DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA — Expositionsprophylaxe (review)

DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA — Expositionsprophylaxe album cover

Album · 1990 · Grindcore

3.5/5 · 2024-07-02
siLLy puPPy

One of the early oddities in the world of nascent death metal, the members of Austria’s DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA couldn’t make up their minds if they wanted to form a death metal band or a grindcore one so in the true spirit of intrepid exploration, the original trio of guitarist / vocalist Patrick Kopf, drummer Martin Messer and guitarist Herald Bezdek did both and thus crafted a bizarre hybrid that featured the technical chops of death metal focused through a grindcore lens. With this lineup the band released a couple demos, two more EPs and then hit the road with Austria’s other early death metal noisemakers Pungeant Stench where they got noticed by Nuclear Blast Records. A record deal was scored.

By the time the band got around to its 1990 debut EXPOSITIONSPROPHYLAXE, Bezdek had been replaced by bassist Herwig Zamerik and the band had haunted their homeland with some of the most caustic expressions of grindcore meets death metal rawness that the world had seen up to that point. Also cited as an early example of technical death metal, EXPOSITIONSPROPHYLAXE featured 16 wildly unhinged tracks that was part Morbid Angel and part Napalm Death with guttural growls, guitar squeals and blastbeat frenzies pointing towards the former while pungent short blasts of skanky punk infused riffing kept the core elements in the forefront.

Adventurous theatrical embellishments such as the opening orchestral freakery “Introphylaxe” and the acoustic / synth touches that opened “Accelerated Evolution” showcase a trenchant avant-garde tendency, one that would permeate the band’s following releases. Strange bleed-ins of unrelated musical processions and other surprises pop up even on this more streamlined debut that is somewhat of an anomaly in the band’s original run from 1987-95. With weirdness at bay at least in the extremities found with the jazzier more Atheist inspired albums that followed, EXPOSITIONSPROPHYLAXE delivers a caustic no nonsense noise-fest that showcases a rhythmic raucousness that also offers a rather amusing propensity for surrealism and silliness as evidenced on track titles such as “Disappeared With Hermaphrodite Choirs” and “The Unequalled Visual Response Mechanism.”

As one of the pioneering forces of mutant metal DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA found few receptive ears who were only getting used to the world of extreme metal while these pioneering trailblazers were already taking things to the next level and beyond. While the band would find a more receptive audience with its following albums once the metal universe had inculcated a veritable pool of avant-garde excesses, this debut tends to get overlooked in favor of those more outlandish examples of experimental freakery. While not the band’s peak effort, EXPOSITIONSPROPHYLAXE delivers satisfying energetic death metal meets grindcore performances that offer a consistent flow of deathened distortion with a touch of atonality with technically infused chops along with the random decor of experimentalism.

Overall i find this to be in an interesting debut although perhaps not to the death metal standards that 1990 had to offer but then again this isn’t a purist’s death metal album at all but rather an experimental hybridization of two of metal’s most extreme art forms of the era. What makes this release unique are the uses of subtle syncopation and other time signature deviations from the more established death metal acts of the time. Just enough small weird quirks to suggest this band was all about tackling the strange and wildly unknown that it would fully embrace on its next two albums before disbanding. Although this could be rightfully tagged as deathcore, that style evolved in a completely different direction than what DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA presented on its debut EXPOSITIONSPROPHYLAXE. From what i’ve experienced, this one remains fairly unique and for that it holds a special charm.