XHOHX — Karyotypexplosion (review)

Album · 2007 · Avant-garde Metal

5/5 · 2018-09-09
siLLy puPPy

Hey extreme prog metal addicts. Can you literally NOT get enough of all musical nooks and crannies filled with every prog trick in the book? Incessant mathcore time signatures on steroids and brutal dissonant chords forced to perform tricks that should be illegal by international law? Random tempos that will make your head explode? Ping pong prog taken to the most extreme levels imaginable? Hey! We got that too. While many a band seem to layer pop hooks in slick layer of production and suave compositional layout, some bands like Belgium’s XHOHX just go for the jugular. Think of this mere duo of Ramon Ribas Coca (guitar, drum programming) and Oregolakatzor (bass) as the genetic lab experiment that mixes the DNA of Morbid Angel, Ruins, The Flying Luttenbachers and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and then something goes terribly wrong.

This band had no intention of playing it even keel and stretching out all their ideas in a decade long career. None of that BS. This noise factory with the palindrome moniker just let it all out in one huge burst of freakifying mindfuckery in a 46 minute musical statement and then jumped back into the murky depths from whence they came and on their one and only release KARYOTYPEXPLOSION you can experience the entire history of prog attributes in this one listening experience. However, i guarantee you very well could lose your mind in the process. Well, the most chaotic and extreme moments of prog that is. No neo-prog or sweet melodies here at all.

There are literally a gazillion bands in the history of prog and metal that have branched out into a gazillion directions creating two of the wealthiest nooks of the entire rock universe, but even in this land of plenty, once in a while an artist occasionally manages to defy all the odds and create something utterly unique and virtually existing in its own little evolutionary branch of the musical universe. A scant few bands such as Mr Bungle, Unexpect, Henry Cow, Samla Mammas Manna and Frank Zappa literally went somewhere no one ever thought possible and thus charted whole new methodologies of musical construct. XHOHX follows suit but goes so far, so fast that it will takes decades for anyone to latch onto this one.

XHOHX engages in a newer form of progressive rock recently tagged brutal prog, the kind of avant-prog that Yugen took to new extremes by unapologetically increasing every aspect of the holy progginess oneness and then dialing it up to the eleventh power. This is music where chaotic dissonance runs supreme but like any really good music that delves in all the most extreme attributes you can throw into the boiling pot, XHOHX manages to smooth it all out with an underlying atmospheric presence that sort of streamlines the overall flow into an RIO / avant-prog paradigm that would be recognizable to fans of Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, Present or even Thinking Plague for that matter.

However, that’s pretty much where any comparisons to other bands stop. The rest of the equation is pure brutality. Brutal metal delivery, brutal dissonance, brutal tempos, brutal vocals, brutal brutal prog to the friggin’ max. This is truly technical music that is bleak and devoid of anything warm and fuzzy whatsoever. While the album primarily consists of bantering angular blasts of brutal metal riffs, schizoid vocals that range from insane asylum shrieks to growling grunts, this is truly a cacophonous maelstrom of the most deranged soundtrack of the insane you could EVER imagine and believe me, i’ve heard a lot of this insane maniac music. This one blows it all away. Even mathcore pigs like Psychopus and Behold…. The Arctopus would cower in fear in the shadow of XHOHX.

Point blank: XHOHX is without doubt THE MOST EXTREME MUSIC i’ve heard. EVER!!!! This is relentless and unforgiving. A tumultuous clamor and clatter of the ages. While the album generally runs on extreme mathcore mode for its first eleven tracks with the fastest and jagged angularities possible, the final track “Nukleark” breaks the trend of punkish shorter time lengths and stretches out to a proggifying near 15 minute time span, however despite remaining as unrelenting and earache inducing as the previous 30 minutes, this one actually engages in quieter moments without the heavily distorted guitar runs attacking like a bombed ammunition factory.

BE WARNED!!! This is brutal prog for brutality’s sake, however if you absolutely crave THEEEEEEEE MOST extreme type of music possible, then you cannot go another day without hearing XHOHX and their monumental masterpiece KARYOTYPEPLOSION. There is method to this madness. Careful attentive listening is a must. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Listen at your own risk. Even the few piano runs are so scary that you’ll want to duck under your covers and pray for your soul to escape permanent damnation for just hearing this bantering musical blasphemy. I’m in! And find this mess irresistible when i’m really in a VERY naughty mood ;)