INTRONAUT — Void (review)

Album · 2006 · Atmospheric Sludge Metal

4/5 · 2015-10-04
siLLy puPPy

INTRONAUT is an extreme metal band from Los Angeles that formed in 2004 when former members of Anubis Rising, Exhumed, Uphill Battle and Impaled coalesced their respected talents into a new musical entity. The result is that INTRONAUT is one of those amazing technical adept bands that has done what few bands successfully pull off, that is take different aspects of music and fuse them together to make a cohesive whole resulting in a seemingly new species in the process. VOID is their debut full-length release after their EP “Null.” INTRONAUT chose its name to describe the inner traveler that encourages the listener to explore the inner mind and creates music that is both contemplative and designed to stimulate the listener’s technical leanings simultaneously. INTRONAUT has created sounds familiar yet somehow different by fusing together aspects of the death, sludge and post aspects of metal all the while steering it into progressive territory that rewards the demanding listener multifold.

Even upon first listen, this album struck me as a progressive extreme metal band that blurred the lines of various types of metal. VOID begins sounding a lot like a Kayo Dot album especially the dissonant chord jangles of “Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue,” but this is just a misleading intro as the music soon becomes aggressive and technical with deathened, tortured vocals that are scary enough to even separate a mother grizzly bear from her defenseless newborn cubs. Although there are a few different sounds going on on VOID, i find the general metal sound to be a kind of hybrid between the tech death of Gorguts with the progressive sludge of Neurosis but the Kayo Dot sound of some kind of alternate tuning system does ring true as well. The vocals are definitely in the death metal camp but the aggressive guitars and bass are clearly going for the sludge metal effect that can immediately bring The Ocean to mind. This is however dressed up in some of the most complex time signatures, jazzy drumming patterns and progressive polyrhythmic weavings that can remind one of compositions by more sophisticated bands like Cynic, Atheist or the aforementioned Kayo Dot.

This is not music for the faint at heart. This is hardcore music in every way showing no mercy with relentless pummeling angular rhythms, highly dissonant jangling of the strings (Sacha Dunable and Leon del Muerte on guitars with Joe Lester on bass) and an energetic, yet perpetually stimulating percussion (by Danny Walker) and vocals that would drive the insane to commit unthinkable crimes like run for political office in the USA. This is music that takes a few listens to sink in. Upon first encounter it will sound totally bizarre and off but the flow of the compositions actually makes sense once you can wrap your head around the whole thing. It is not as alienating as Gorguts’ “Obscura” but a bit harder swallow than any of Neurosis’ albums.

While not as accomplished in the perfection department as the stunning followup “Prehistoricisms” this debut album has more than enough intricacies and surprises to please the intellectual metalhead who lives for twists and turns that not only shock and surprise but also provide a smorgasbord of different hooks and dissonant melodies that can be deciphered. This is an excellent debut from INTRONAUT. If you already love Neurosis,The Ocean or Gorguts and want to take that arena of sludgy deathened metal even further then INTRONAUT will satisfy all those desires and no better place to get your feet wet than with their debut VOID. INTRONAUT is a totally under the radar band that IMHO deserves a whole lot more recognition because their talent is immeasurable. An acquired taste for sure, but one that i personally have acquired and savored ever since.