Jurassic

Senmuth, the seemingly unstoppable Russian musician responsible for releasing more music in a single year than most band's release in a lifetime, graces us with his one hundred and twenty-fifth full length (one hundred and fifty-eighth release overall), Jurassic. Described by Senmuth as “Mesozoic avant-garde metal”, this release features a combination of Senmuth's industrialized beginnings, his later fascination with downtuned rhythmic riffs, spacey ambiance and heavy percussion. Really, it's pretty much the culmination of his work thus far; a quite impressive feat for such an immense catalog.

Interestingly enough, this album, and its predecessor, Triassic, show Senmuth becoming involved with a different set of influences. A lot of Senmuth's music focuses on ethnic ideologies, specifically of Egyptian and Asian cultures, and cosmic, spacey-wacey ideas (thanks, Doctor Who). If you couldn't guess it by the cover art or the album title, it seems that Senmuth is now focusing on dinosaurs and prehistoric lifeforms. I mean, really, how many other areas are as exotic and as crushingly heavy as dinosaurs? It's fitting though, because the music on Jurassic is exceedingly heavy at times and compellingly exotic at others.

The music on Jurassic can basically be split in two, with one end residing on heavy, pulsating rhythms and the other resting within the realm of spacey, exotic ambiance. It seems that for every heavy track like “Dilophosaurus Eat Thyreophora” there's a counter measure in the form of ambiance like “Graphoceras: Noise of the Ancient”. The heavier section showcase a pummeling rhythm section, with a very tom heavy, almost tribal feel. The guitars are mostly embodied by a deep, eight string sound, with pulsating riffs that border on the djentier side of things. Thankfully, the guitars aren't all polyrhythmic wankery, as a touch of the industrial edge from his early albums remains on Jurassic.

The production is a little more dense and biting than before, as even the ambient sections have a thick and hardened edge to them. The tom heavy sound of the drums mixed with the rhythmic chugging guitars causes the entire affair to pretty much bowl you over with wave after wave of pummeling sounds. The ambient interludes are still somewhat dense and, even though they allow for a slight breath catching respite, keep the thick atmosphere flowing along. For a good idea of the intermingling of ambient sections and rhythmic heaviness, check out “Hexinlusaurus Attack!”, as its constant tribal drumming and somewhat ethnic leads constantly battle with chugging riffs and dense atmospherics. The album finishes with the monstrous “Great Tithonian, End of Jurassic”, which looms heavily on the listener as it slowly builds into a behemoth crescendo of string samples and rhythms that carries us into the next age of Senmuth; whenever that will be.

This is actually quite a bittersweet release, as it marks the last release before Senmuth put the band on hold due to health issues. He has stated that he wishes to continue his music after recovery, but this is still the first hiatus Senmuth has seen since formation, at least to my knowledge. It's good to see that he was able to gracefully bow out with an album that embodies all of his work to date. Senmuth is currently accepting donations and he also has a few albums for sale on his Bandcamp page, if you wish to contribute to Senmuth's road to recovery. Jurassic is a dense album that holds many rewards underneath the surface. Much like the rest of Senmuth's catalog, you must approach with an open mind. Apparently dinosaur metal is a thing now...