Even we, the chosen few, the metal fans of dark, extreme material, even we still sometimes stop and wonder what on earth that racket is coming from the stereo. If only for a few seconds, at least. And so ‘twas that I jacked Autokrator into my biggest Davros-style headphones and paused for a moment as I imagined briefly that this is more or less what my parents heard when they listened to Angel of Death coming from my bedroom all those years ago and probably just figured that I was doing it just to annoy everyone. This is deep-down, rumbling noise. The kind of stuff that even after all these years I spent a few faithless moments wondering if I’m never going to get my tiny, tinnitus-plagued ears around it. Total annihilation of the blackened, twisted electro-death metal kind. The sort of noise that you know even within a few seconds that is going to begin warping in your mind into colourful shapes and patterns even as the future dad in you realises that, to at least 99.99999 percent of the population: This. Is. Just. A. Fcuking. Noise.
But it doesn’t actually take long to realise that Autokrator is anything but. The whole thing is designed to snap your aural synapses like a light show kicks those optical nerves into gear and breaks a smile on your face without you even realising it. Like a low thunder of distant war that slowly envelops you. Impaling your senses with a rush of poleaxe-wielding insanity that leaves you not knowing whether to break something over the nearest person’s head in cold, adrenaline-fuelled panic or just sink down into the nearest wide open space of carpet and enter a negative-zen-like state as the whole experience dominates your senses. Not a million miles from Amsterdam gabba hardcore in its hypnotic insanity but probably best described as a perfect meeting of heavy as hell blackened death metal bands like and the tripped-out hypnotic black noise of Darkspace. The noise itself eventually begins the gradual process of exploration – clearing to reveal the component parts of Autokrator’s sound. A mixture of deep fuzzy death metal guitars, industrialised drone and martial beats. Band members include Loïc.F of the industrial black metal drone-fest NKVD who this time round has taken things up a notch or three on the intensity scale.
The subject matter? The cruel, blood soaked history of Rome barked out courtesy of the band’s dual vocalists and delivered through clipped phrases in voices that sound like they’ve been flattened and warped by a fully-spiked, squad of steam rollers and then grilled on a bed of boiling oil. Utter bliss, if you’re into that sort of thing. First released digitally a couple of months ago and now getting a showing on vinyl so you can hear the sound of musical oppression clambering out of those cavernous, crafted grooves. Classic, unsettling Iron Bonehead material. But it might just be better to stick to the digital format unless you fancy seeing your beloved vinyl purchase warp and melt all over your turntable. By the third track Autokrator are out to prove that they can operate in more than fifth gear shifting down to a rumbling wave of destruction still fully capable of flattening towns and cities in its wake. Then between shifts in the pace of the machine-like pulse of the drums and some pure atmospherics just to weird you out a bit further, the final track slows to a drifting industrial dirge just to give the villagers time enough to clear the bodies from the landscape and throw them on the funeral pyres that stretch from here to the horizon. Then, like a thundering Blitzkrieg it’s all over before you even have time to wonder how all the trees and fields have turned to mud. An encounter with Autokrator is not an easy one, almost too dense at times, but it’s rich in dark rewards for anyone willing to stand firm and feel the full force of its incredible barrage.
(8/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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