With a couple of albums and a few EPs already out this third album by US band Dischordia is likely to divide the technical death metal world, purely because the album is so off the wall that describing it with words just cannot impart the superlatives required. I’ve not heard the band’s previous output but suffice to say ‘Triptych’ is not an easy listen, far from it, it is actually quite uncomfortable at times and whether anyone would really listen to it for enjoyment is also up for debate, such is the interweaving complexity and plain unconventional approach of the song writing and playing. Undeniably technically adroit the trio within the ranks create one hell of racket here but spliced into them are pieces that are absolutely mind boggling at times and to be honest shouldn’t work whatsoever but do.
There are plenty of acts that can be referenced such as Gorguts, Ulcerate, Defeated Sanity, Cryptopsy but what Dischordia do above and stratospherically beyond those acts is inflict on the listener tracks so bizarre and loaded with copious and deluging changes it is often difficult to keep track. With tracks of a relatively lengthy nature opener ‘Minds Of Dust’ firmly ensures those brave enough to endure this album that they are completely in a league of their own. Their chaotic hyper velocity assault belies that the band is a three piece and contrasts hugely with most of the Transcending Obscurity roster I’ve heard. Their ultra-brutal tornado approach takes your breath away, leaves you wondering what the hell is going to come next as those pauses, or mid track breaks, arrive without warning.
‘Bodies Of Ash’ continues the insane intensity that saturates throughout its 56 minutes plus duration, every second unleashing a firestorm of riffs, leads and bombarding tempo deviations. Most technical metal has some rivulets of melody, a hook or groove you can clutch onto and think yeah this is cool stuff, but not with Dischordia, and as their band moniker suggests, this album is about controlled pandemonium, measured dissonance and unmitigated power as ‘Body Of Ash’ delivers a flute phase in the middle, that you just don’t expect. I’m sure it won’t work for all those who partake in listening to this album, but on the whole, it completely cleaves the song in two, like the other melodic, often ambient transitions on other tunes.
Cryptopsy infests the start of ‘Spirits Of Dirt, that sense of obliterating rampant speed linked to this bands unique riffs that rain down like a monsoon and whilst you will crave for that hook or groove, it never materialises, instead this band just ups the ante, focusing the intensity on every tune to the point it feels like the whole release is about to implode. It would take more than 100 listens of this just to really absorb what the band has achieved but I suspect you could listen to it a thousand times and still hear something new, such is the ferocious complexity, which you have got to admire.
That sense of barraging the listener never reins in, except for those bridging sections, as ‘The Carriage’ so ably proves. The demented nature has lunacy but with colossal control as the schizoid ‘Panopticon’ follows, increasing the power slightly with its unrelenting battering nature. At times I was reminded of the mathcore genre, as on ‘Purifying Flame’, that sense of unremitting technicality but all done within death metal density as the ambient sequence creates a different level of intensity I really liked. Closing is ‘Le Petit Mort’ as the bass has that Cryptopsy twang to it and the drum work is utterly rabid, allowing that drenching of riffs to embed into the onslaught and ensures Dischordia have created one of the most technically adept yet truly disturbing albums in 2022.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
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