DIMESLAND — Psychogenic Atrophy (review)

DIMESLAND — Psychogenic Atrophy album cover

Album · 2014 · Technical Thrash Metal

3.5/5 · 2016-02-26
siLLy puPPy

DIMESLAND is a strange djent tech thrash metal band from Oakland, CA and have quickly earned the reputation of delivering some of the most seriously brutal and depraved extreme metal guaranteed to scare off the unadventurous despite the rather unmetal album cover and even the somewhat lame band name. I wonder if they looked to Nickelback or Pennywise for inspiration in that department? First impressions aside, this California quartet delivers some of the strangest abstract ambient brutality in the entire metal universe. After the release of their debut EP, “Creepmoon” the band found a few loyal followers earning them a reputation as a hybrid of classic Atheist, Voivod and Martyr cranking out sci-fi fueled horror subject matter and wild tech death / thrash ear punishment but gained even more followers after the release of their debut album PSYCHOGENIC ATROPHY which immediately places them in the strange world of avant-garde death metal bands like Gorguts and Pyrrhon in how they ramble around with one angular rhythm after another, bizarre chord changes and jazz / metal fusion gone mad at times sounding a bit like Atheist alternating with sludgy off-timed jangle chords building up to a djentrified crescendo that can bring prog sludge masters Intronaut to mind.

What really drives this din into creepsville is the strange ambient segments and horrific subject matter delving in the world of psychological havoc and the stuff that nightmares are made of. This music is brutal, aggressive and surreal. Every aspect is designed to create mental dystopia and designer dissonance. I call this extreme psychedelic horror metal as it spirals out of control immediately in sonic free form and shape shifts from one earache inducing sequence to another sometimes incorporating strange ambient sounds, sometimes unidentifiable cacophony such as bee buzzing and at other times just in-her-in-yer-face nerdy tech brutality. The vocals tend to stay in the heavy sludge department hence the Intronaut connection but the compositions are dense and macabre and ever changing. A seemingly random sonic kaleidoscope with snippets of hardcore and crust emerging from the din only to totally disintegrate into Gorguts inspired blistering polyrhythms. Very rarely do the guitars, bass and drums play together but when they do they soar like a flock of birds in the sky and when they don’t scurry in myriad directions like roaches on a kitchen floor when the light goes on. Are they even playing the same music?

PSYCHOGENIC ATROPHY is not for the faint of heart. This is some of the most brutal and avant-free-form metal there is to be heard. It builds upon the extremities of previous tech metal bands and gallops unapologetically further down the sonic pastures of possibilities murdering any hopes for melodic development. Personally i’m not sure what to think of this. Is this complexity for complexities’ sake? Is it musical wankitude of the highest degree? Perhaps, but it certainly is not one bit boring and keeps my attention. Hardly dinner music that you will put on dining with your sweetie but rather one heady tripped out cacophonous roar that will leave the listener blistered and bewildered. As a music nerd who loves all things technical, i have to say that i do enjoy this however this will most likely only appeal to those who have an appetite for chaotic music that takes the approach of putting Meshuggah, Gorguts, Intronaut and Atheist in a blender, adding a little jet fuel and setting it ablaze. While i do like this because it utterly falls outside the parameters of established orthodoxy, i have to admit that the incessant jarring qualities prevent this from being a major contender for the extreme tech metal crown. An intriguing album that deserves to be heard but it also seems like some maturation needs to take place in order to have a more cohesive feel. Whatever that is may unbeknownst to me but something seems like it’s missing at this point.