Pangaea Ultima

Release number two hundred and twenty for the busiest musician this side of Buckethead, Pangaea Ultima came out in 2016 (one of thirteen to drop in that year). Any listeners that have followed Senmuth's career trajectory won't find many surprises within, as the album continues the exploratory combination of somewhat djenty, rhythmic palm muting, spacey, oft electronic synths, and ethnic-tinged keys and percussion.

While not quite as polyrhythmic and djent-laden as the 2014 string of albums (Jurassic really comes to mind here) and not as ethnically charged as some of his early works. That places Pangaea Ultima firmly in the middle ground of Senmuth's daunting body of work, which could be a fine starting point for someone looking to dive into such a vast discography. Sure, there's still plenty of rhythmic, angular chugs and tribal percussion, it's just more evenly spread out across the entirety of the album.

The opener, “Global Riftogenesis”, combines all avenues mentioned above quite nicely, starting with a barrage of chugging and lofty, ethnic tinged lead notes before dropping into spacey quietude, and bouncing back again to finish. “Tectonics Timeline” boasts a pummeling, constantly rolling backline while the deep, chuggy riffs press forward, occasionally making way for industrial flits of sound in the background. The album's closing track, “Hypothetical Supercontinent”, closes out the album with a pretty immersive ambient track that touches upon ethnic strings and a fleeting wash of spacey noise in the background.

When taken as a whole, Pangaea Ultima merges a lot of Senmuth's sounds into one mostly cohesive product. It's not as ethnically charged or industrialized as his early work and it's not as djenty or chuggy as some of his later material, offering instead a solid link between eras. Even when one becomes familiar with Senmuth's work, there is always more to discover. Don't be daunted by the vast back catalog; just dive in somewhere and start listening.