Protosapien

There aren't enough albums like Protosapien: slow and crushingly heavy; memorable; hateful; well-produced; cohesive.

Let's work through that list. First, there's no denying the doom tempos of this record -- it's really, really slow, and in the best way possible. The emphasis is not on dazzling displays of technique, it's on thick, churning sludge. Not much more can be said on the topic.

Next: whether something is memorable is a murky area, since things that grab me may not grab you, but there is also a simple equation that has held true for humans since the dawn of time: repetition makes you remember things, for better or worse. My point is that even if a musical hook is not that catchy, if you repeat it enough times it will get stuck in a person's head. I personally feel that Jupiterian do a tremendous job on Protosapien of creating sludgy, doom-laden hooks that are memorable and pleasing, but even if you don't agree with that point I think that most anyone would have to admit that the band repeats their hooks just enough to cement them in your memory without making them boring or annoying. It's hard to write good hooks, and just as hard to know how much of a good thing is enough, yet Jupiterian strike that balance here perfectly.

Onward: the anti-humanism of this record is another aspect that cannot be denied. Song titles like 'Mere Humans' and 'Earthling Bloodline' say so much with so few words -- they are so effective that they even manage to empower the cover art. On its own, the cover art would be nothing special -- typical for any death, doom, or black metal album -- but paired with these song titles, it is imbued with multiple new layers of abject nihilism, human annihilation, and Lovecraftian monsters. That is how powerful the hatred for humanity is on this record. Unsurprisingly, the lyrics within the songs continue this trend with a fierce commitment. Verily, there is no love or light to be found on Protosapien.

While the production here obviously wouldn't work for other styles of metal, it works perfectly for sepulchral doom. It literally sounds like you are in an enormous tomb of death, which is exactly the vibe one would want when dreaming of giant inter-dimensional beings systematically flaying all of mankind. But despite this, each instrument is clear and distinct, and has all the necessary bottom end that doom demands.

Everything I have already here written sums up my last point: cohesiveness. There is nothing on this album that is not laser-focused on the precise feeling and picture Jupiterian seeks to create. The cover art, music, production, song titles and lyrics are all intent on communicating one horrible, nightmarish, misanthropic idea, and in my opinion they do so exquisitely.