Cognitive Discord

One of my favorite collections of visual art works is Luis Royo’s “Three Millennium”. Its depictions of ruined technology, post-apocalyptic decay, superimposed upon the pristine and arousing imagery of the female figure in a wide array of manifestations, inspire both deep and shallow thoughts, depending mostly upon the audience. In much the same way, this early offering by the obscure Russian industrial/gothic outfit Senmuth conjures up images of future tumult, guided by the depravity of society, through the medium of beautiful melodies surrounded by the sonic byproducts of the synthetic.

Although this sort of music may not pummel the ears with a hard edged guitar sound, the amount of Ambient sound packed into each song could like blow your speakers as quickly as any Thrash metal album. It has a strong amount of Metal based ideas, some of them even crossing over into the speed metal realm. This is particularly noticeable on “We Lose…” and “…From Emptiness”, both of which walk a thin line between techno music straight from one of “The Matrix” movies and something that might have been heard on an Anthrax or early Slayer album. It takes a little effort to hear the latter underneath all of the synthesizers, but it’s definitely there.

The overall guitar presence on here is fairly prominent throughout, and even establishes itself on slower and more atmospheric works. Even on songs such as “Tearing The Last Strings”, which are loaded with overpowering spoken sections and varying keyboard themes, those processed yet raunchy power chords and melodic lead sections still manage to push through and make themselves heard. “Regress” takes the prize for the weirdest of all the songs on here with all the pitch bending going on between the keyboards, but at the same time these really brief yet highly intriguing lead passages jump in, sometimes bordering on shredding in a manner comparable to Jennifer Batten’s style of soloing.

Perhaps the aspect of this album that makes it so appealing is that despite all of the different things going on simultaneously, it stays relatively consistent and puts as much metal in as it does Industrial and ambient material. I think there is actually a brief section on “Irreversibility” where we’re treated to a synthesized blast beat, albeit one of those slower ones that you’d hear on an ambient black metal release. They also throw in an operatic Soprano slot on the opening song “The Deformed Knowledge”, which along with a beautiful piano drone gives a strong gothic overtone to something that would otherwise be a distorted beast of guitar fuzz and popping drum beats.

Of Senmuth’s extended catalog, this is among the more accessible albums for someone who is not inclined towards ambient and avant-garde music. It has fairly discernable structures and despite the thickly distorted and synthetic layering, is pretty easy on the ears. This is probably part of the reason why it was able to get some label support while most of the band’s other works have remained largely underground. The language barrier might be a little bit of an obstacle for any non-Russian speakers, but if you can tolerate all of those bands from Finland employing their language into their music every now and then, this isn’t all that much harder to get into.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on November 28, 2008.