MITOCHONDRION – Vitriseptome

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8.5

• Bands:
  MITOCHONDRION
• Duration: 01:28:32
• Available from: 01/11/2024
• Label:

• Profound Lore

Streaming not yet available

Even before the actual value of the proposal, Mitochondrion willingly embraces the idea of ​​sensorial abomination to which the quartet leads. As happens with an entity like the Australians Portal, what fascinates is the concept of taking to the extreme consequences what is already unbridled, intense, paroxysmal and unspeakable within the world of death and black metal. We try to accelerate, complicate, emphasize every aspect of the sound, to lead it towards something dissolute, disturbing and almost 'impossible'. Pressing all these notes into such a small space, breaking them down into very intricate rhythms and scarring them with equally inhuman singing, seems unreasonable and unnatural. Yet it happens. On this front, the Canadians had already demonstrated technical preparation, clear ideas and a hint of verbosity with the first two albums “Archaeaeon” and “Parasignosis”, devastating and challenging works, so hostile as to make them something insurmountable, unless habitually chewing material from the aforementioned Portal, or from Abyssal, Antediluvian, Impetuous Ritual, Ævangelist. Having appeared in Europe for few but devastating live appearances (tours in 2014 and 2019), ours have been at a standstill for a long time from a recording point of view. So much so that “Vitriseptome” fills a silence of thirteen years since the previous full-length, interrupted only by the short EP “Antinumerology” from 2013 and the split with Auroch, “In Cronian Hour”, from 2016.
From those coordinates the journey begins again, or rather, the work of barbaric, psychotic conquest. Starting from the lesson of Gorguts' “Obscura”, from the apocalyptic distortions of Deathspell Omega, from the aforementioned Portal, Mitochondrion have become crazed disciples, aiming to madly accelerate their own cavernous death/black metal, in which the combination of leaden sounds, odd tempos, dissonances, multiple vocal assaults becomes a kind of extreme metal orgy. A drip of instrumental explosions, infernal metallic crashes, tangles of notes with an anxious, alien and horrifying tone. All played with remarkable technical expertise, to shape sounds that Mitochondrion try to make as hostile and elitist as possible.
“Vitriseptome” is on a level of difficulty and complexity even higher than previous albums. Meanwhile, due to the structure and length of the album – seventeen tracks for almost an hour and a half of music, with ambient/noise interludes interspersing the actual songs – such that the gap between reality and hypothetical Lovecraftian worlds narrows by minute by minute, making us slip into a shapeless and hungry nightmare.
It is difficult to go into the details of the individual tracks, because essentially Mitochondrion spend themselves in a similar recipe from one to the other and align convoluted and asphyxiated songs, where rhythmic and guitar moments alternate vaguely – very vaguely – more linear and with some connection to the death metal tradition, and others broken down into a thousand cuts, overlaps, infinite tempo changes. The difficulty in withstanding such an attack on multiple fronts is multiplied by the obsessive vocal assault, with lyrics so dense that the music can rarely breathe free from underlining the beastly three-voice singing. A characteristic that makes Canadians even more unclean and destabilizing than other colleagues who operate in similar contexts.
To better appreciate its boldness, its avant-garde drive, the best episodes are the most extensive ones, when the development of the music becomes even more intricate and dark: in these circumstances a suite-type structure gives a sick psychedelic aura to what is played, making it easier to perceive the atmospheric touch of the formation, elsewhere drowned in the instrumental chaos. The desolate rarefactions at the end of “Flail, Faexregem!” and “Viabyssm” instill a sinister sense of desolation, as if one were taking a breath after an effort of abnormal violence and admiring the damage done.
Compared to other contenders in the world of more psychotic and labyrinthine extreme metal, Mitochondrion stand out for the unbridled impetus that guides their action, so that physicality prevails over intellectualism: despite the stunning and alienating impact, the four do not they get bogged down in confusing and unfocused structures, always finding ways to hurt, never loosening their grip on ferocity and speed of execution.
Certainly, “Vitriseptome” is not a product for everyone and, while not wanting to follow up on certain boastful declarations of the group in this sense – we refer to the latest statements on their official social channels – it is unlikely that it will have a large audience of admirers. It is understandable that one can accuse him of being unlistenable, pretentious, arrogant. But if the madness of death and black metal, when expressed in limitless brutality, appeals to you, this is an album that at the very least you must listen to. Then maybe you'll want to move on, but knowing what it's about doesn't hurt…