Diskord hail from Norway, and have had an unflinching penchant for blasting out dissonant, progressive and downright weird death metal since forming in 1999. Having released their second album ‘Dystopics’ on the ‘No Posers Please!’ label in 2012, Diskord’s debut album ‘Doomscapes’ was out of print for all their new fans desperate to get their hands on it. Thus, up steps Hellthrasher Productions to re-issue it, along with a bonus disc of their earlier 2003 demo ‘Aural Abjection’ to sweeten the deal even further.
Well, despite being called ‘Doomscapes’, Diskord’s debut really isn’t a doomy album at all. The album has a very dry sound, with strange riffs that sound hugely different to most other death metal you will likely have heard recently. Occasionally they blast the shit out of their instruments, or they decide to let their chords ring out for a full on spooky dissonant effect. Mostly though, they like to incorporate an almost punky vibe with their dehydrated bass and drums and have their cheese grater guitars slice and pound alongside the venomous spat vocals for a very refreshing sound overall. The track ‘Harbinger’ sums up a lot of what the album has to offer. It has an extremely speedy opening, with swarming guitars and drums all clamouring for position… before breaking into silence, then a pounding heart beat like bass moment, before shooting back into the riff salad madness. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their style, but is a good example of what you can expect throughout.
As a whole, there’s an odd, almost inverted progressive style of guitar riffage of ‘Doomscapes’ which not only grinds like hell, but also gives occasional nods to the avant-garde strangeness of mid-period Carbonized, early Pungent Stench or Disharmonic Orchestra. Hell, there’s even the odd prang of ‘Obscura’ era Gorguts in their sound from time to time. Overall, a pretty decent effort and a nice change from the slew of cookie cutter death metal bands.
The band’s early ‘Aural Abjection’ demo which comes on the bonus disc of this re-issue doesn’t have quite the same full bodied production as ‘Doomscapes’ – but you’d expect this seeing as it’s a demo. Still, the bands style is still very much the same as their debut album, with progressive staccato riffage jerking and spasming throughout the strange time signatures of the opening instrumental ‘Havoc Intermezzo’, before carrying on for first track proper ‘Instauration’ which comes off very much like the aforementioned Pungent Stench, albeit with an even weirder riffing style.
Overall, this is a nice little package. The music on ‘Doomscapes’ just about trumps the music on the demo disc, but there’s still some good stuff to be heard on ‘Aural Abjection’ too (especially the first couple of tracks). If you like extreme metal with a real avant-garde vibe, twisted riffing and songs that keep you guessing, this could well be a decent purchase for you.
(7.5/10 Lars Christiansen)
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