Protosapien

Something has always drawn us back to times of prehistory, when a world unknowable to us flourished and manifold things unrecorded shaped our destiny as a species. Being able to glimpse that world even for a moment has cost archaeologists and anthropologists countless hours amounting to years. Poring over maps, digging into dry earth, dusting off layers of powdery soil, and eventually recovering a scrap of bone, we have built an extremely rudimentary picture of human development and origins. Apes came down from the trees, learned to walk upright, became skilled at hunting, meat cultivated their brains: we all know that history. But, with a single word, Jupiterian posit another possibility: protosapien. And, more than that, the Brazilian band, known by their initials, paint that possible history into a suddenly very concrete and immediate reality. From the incredible cover artwork by Mariusz Lewandowski to the thick silt of the songs themselves, every inch of Protosapien feels like a stark reveal of natural history.

In a sense, the same quartet that recorded Terraforming in 2017 (less drummer G, now replaced by P) have stuck to a well-trodden path, primal grumbling sludge oozing around the rather irregular thump of drums in a similar manner to Unearthly Trance and Lurk. In principle, this third full-length is largely composed of riffs and some misshapen bridges, the deep and booming guitar sound of 'Starless' also lamenting in a deathly doom manner not dissimilar to Mournful Congregation, while brief moments of propulsion prove that Protosapien is not only an album of clanging and scraping sloth. The vocals follow another trope of vaguely deathly sludge in remaining deep and cavernous for much of the time, croaked and burped out like a kingdom of monstrous toads attempting to take over the Amazon. As such, many of the components exist for Jupiterian to be called a capable atmospheric sludge group: the massive, muddy clout of the guitars, the ungainly stagger of the drums, the barbarian bellow of the vocals.

In reality, however, Jupiterian feel about as different as they come from other sludge ensembles. For starters, everything about Protosapien feels like a doom album, those riffs beckoning dread from the sheer force of their impact and even the intro 'Homecoming' conjuring the spirit of droners Bong with its minimalistic cosmic dread. The arrival of 'Mere Humans' thrills the nerves as a primal familiarity grates off the mammoth dance of its rhythms, and a new reality wraps around the listener. Deeper into the album, the overwhelming weight of Jupiterian’s music begins to bear down, several moments of critical mass forcing revelations through the ears and into the mind, such as when 'Earthling Bloodline' seems to double in magnitude without changing track, a feat that occurs twice before its conclusion. Entirely different from a technical perspective but astonishingly similar in the experience comes the swirling storm that brews midway through 'Capricorn', blastbeats and incensed screams suddenly boiling in the rising wind, pinning everything down in the process.

At just over 35 minutes, Protosapien empirically runs short, yet the impact and import of the listen would be felt even from the first 2 tracks. Granted, the whole experience builds itself to the crescendo of 'Earthling Bloodline' in winding fits and starts, seeming predestined to arrive at such a denouement from the first eruption of guitar on 'Mere Humans'. Of course, such a heavily conceptualized release tells its tale in more ways than one; pointedly, the largely indistinguishable growls and whispers leave final interpretations up to the listener. And although the earthiness of the sludge sound and the atmosphere of doomy compositions corroborate to form the image of Protosapien as the history of a lost human ancestor, the eerily quiet opening of 'Homecoming' and the album’s cobwebbed artwork suggest another possibility – that Jupiterian compose from a prophetic angle. If anything, what all the monumental scope and overwhelming magnitude seem to spell out is how minuscule, how precarious our existence is, while much greater forces are at work and have been at work for far longer. Whatever the intended meaning behind its gargantuan symbols, Protosapien represents a serious step up the evolutionary ladder for Jupiterian. We are mere humans indeed.


Originally written for The Metal Observer - http://www.metal-observer.com/3.o/review/jupiterian-protosapien/