REVIEWED: Sinsaenum's 'Repulsion For Humanity'
There’s no denying that a supergroup numbering such genre-defining heavyweights as Joey Jordison, Mayhem’s Attila Csihar and Dragonforce bassist Frédéric Leclercq is nothing short of a metal fan’s proverbial wet dream. But before you hasten to reach for a clean change of underwear, let’s first consider how this varied melange of sonic personas and traditions might possibly come together as a sound independent of its high-profile origins. The answer? In more gloriously savage and tautly cohesive form than you could ever imagine... Among this adrenaline-fuelled feast of abrasive, coldly atmospheric and bone-splintering sonic energies, Sinsaenum’s masterful talent for balancing undiluted brutality with meticulously engineered precision is the first and foremost attraction of this dizzyingly aggressive long-player. With its gargantuan groove and madly accelerating spirals of lacerating tremolo, ‘Repulsion for Humanity’s’ blistering, self-titled opener is generously drenched in gore-soaked ’90s nostalgia. With Csihar’s gargling, acerbic-throated vocal talents happily making it easy to overlook such undeniably clichéd lines as “Slaughter! Eviscerate! Spill the blood!”, there’s an equal technical sharpness and complexity at work here that’s unmistakably of the present. Note, in particular, the insanely paced flurries of notey intricacies that palpably glisten with dazzling clarity atop a churning undertow of inky distortion. And despite its delicate, almost designer perfume-worthy title, ‘Nuit Noir’ sees violently contorted lines of guitar abound with dusky majesty as Csihar lowers his trademark snarl to a rumbling, horror movie-standard of spoken word poetics. Channelling an altogether more frostbitten calibre of darkness, ‘Sworn To Hell’ instantly seduces with its blackly glimmering repertoire of Satyricon-flavoured groove and violently writhing tremolo.
But for all this rampaging, deliciously dark carnage, nothing can quite prepare the enraptured listener for the ceaselessly shifting, energised work of insidious horror that is ‘My Swansong’. Anchored in densely churning layer upon layer of electrifying, well-muscled riffage, it’s with coldly calculating, deathly panache that this nightmarish standout manipulates haunting melodic details and cinematic atmospheres to utterly bloodcurdling effect.
In short, words ultimately fail to fully and accurately capture the countless shades of bludgeoning, devilish and deliciously visceral horrors that abide here. But, take it on trust: this is extreme metal at its most electrifying, eardrum-eviscerating finest.
'Repulsion For Humanity' is out 10th August on earMUSIC