The stylistic lineage that Canadian band Thantifaxath seems to adhere to for this album is one that attempts to use dissonance not as a tool but as a starting point to create an entire language out of it. Such a project naturally carries with it both potentials and limitations and, as is usually the case with such situations, most of the practitioners end up lapsing into quickly ankylosed formulas almost exclusively focused on the more superficial aspects. For our part, we believe Thantifaxath’s proposal to be one of the better recent attempts at this difficult style.
Unlike many bands of a similar aesthetic persuasion that opt for a maximum disorientation policy, carried all the way to the textural level (Portal being a representative example), Thantifaxath actually privilege a clear presentation and sharp production, leaving the invocation of chaos to the songwriting itself.
A surprisingly rich variety of techniques is employed to paint all the corners of this Bosch/Goya landscape with full conviction and vigor, including elements outside of the typical cannons of extreme metal and its more angular expressions. Songs like “Surgical Utopian Love” allows us a glimpse of the higher possibilities of this genre when genuine care is given to the composition instead of exhausting the creative energy in the most immediate shock effects. A furious outpouring of poisonous riffs duel with blast-beats that soon give way to other rhythmic patterns and interludes that contribute a certain ritualistic furor consistent with the album’s tone.
Such tracks, with their unexpected turns and variegated topography of delirium, evoke a nuanced intensity that is rarely accomplished in this genre or, for that matter, contemporary extreme metal in general. Other, less successful ones seem either too enamored with the power of a given combination of guitar riff and percussive pattern or lacking enough direction to formulate a satisfying development, leaving the songs in a stasis of unresolved tension – although this is certainly an intended effect as well.
In any case, Thantifaxath display creativity and articulation on a level certainly superior to that of (most of) their peers, making this effort a natural recommendation to those more inclined to the zones explored by bands like Ulcerate or Kostnatění.
