Izoteri-Ka

Senmuth are a fairly strange band if this album is any indication, the whole thing sounds like Ulver’s Blood Inside but with some distorted guitars. And not as good. But anyway it’s a weird but pretty sweet album, with some vague industrial overtones fighting with a heap of piano and whatever else these guys deem is worthy.

One thing that’s immediately obvious is that Senmuth are pretty good with their electronics. The drums do sound artificial but are nonetheless well programmed, quite dynamic and giving a fairly life like performance. Like someone on a v-drum kit, I guess. There’s a heap of synths floating around, some holding the tunes together but a lot of them just floating around for a few seconds before disappearing again. There’s a heap of elements coming and going; guitars plugging at some sort of industrial riffs come and go, almost at random while a heap of synths, other guitar layers and effects engage in a bloody melee. I don’t know if it’s arranged with some amazing precision or if it is just genuinely chaotic; regardless it’s kinda cool but for the most part confusing. The thing that’s cool about this album is that even when there’s a million layers going off all at once, what would normally be a swirling mess can end up being surprisingly melodic; not to say that this will album will get played on the radio any time soon though. “Motivy Proshyhl” or whatever it’s called is a good enough example of this; there’s an insane amount of layers going off but the melody is still crystal clear, and extremely simple. The seriously acid-fried synth pop/industrial/thing that is “Pozmat Ezrimoe Imya” is another one; heaps of layers, vocals that are pretty much anti-melodic, a brief ¾ section but overall it’s still a pretty killer song.

Fitting well inside the completely bizarre soundscapes are the vocals, you could almost imagine them being in some sort of “edgy” alt-rock/industrial thing if they weren’t also really strange. They’re in Russian which automatically makes them weird, and the singer doesn’t seem to be terribly concerned with sounding good, moreso getting his point across as quickly and weirdly as possible. I dunno, it’s hard to call them anything other then “weird”, but that’s pretty much what they are.

I think enjoyment of this album depends on how big your tolerance for weirdness is. I can see avant-garde metal fans creaming their pants over this, whereas a lot of people will likely hate this with a passion. “Ya Pokidau Geliopo” is utterly chaotic and makes Blood Inside sound like Sunn O))) in comparison; two guitar solos, arpeggiated strings going everywhere, synths crammed inside every orifice, loud guitars, and all before it breaks down for a little bit with a brief bit of solo piano. It’s the strangest song on here but that’s not to say there’s much here that’s sensible, the airy (and rather nice) noisy-piano intro aside.

I guess I still enjoyed this album a fair bit, or maybe even a lot. At the very least these guys deserve credit for the excellent production job they did in this, there’s so many layers going everywhere that mixing it must’ve been a nightmare. The enjoyment may just lie in me going “wow, this is odd” but regardless I do enjoy this, and despite the synthesised chaos the whole thing is rather emotional and personal, like we’re on a journey into the minds of two insane Russians. I’d recommend it, especially with some sort of drugs.