[Cover Art by Gianna Martucci-Fink]
Metal has long been a bastion of experimentation and that has become ever more true as technology progresses. While pushing genre boundaries and creating new sounds can certainly be achieved with your standard metal instruments (guitar, bass and drums), many bands have turned to the broader scope of note blaring items like theremins, classical strings, brass, and even obscure wood-block folk instruments that only seven people have ever played. Some of these will always be more popular than others. We all know the sax has been, and will forever remain, super sexy:
Some, however, have been unfairly derided in the eyes of the metal kingdom.
Enter the flute.
You’ll likely see plenty of “Gorguts with flutes” bandied about for this album. That statement isn’t unwarranted but may be overstating the role of that little reed puffer just a bit. (and, yes, I realize my first two paragraphs are adding to the sentiment). While Josh Turner’s tooter is only used in a few songs, it still manages to stand out and provide a substantial atmosphere to the proceedings and much-needed breaks from the frenetic brand of death metal that collapses eardrums.
Let’s talk about all that heaviness first. Yes, the most immediate comparison will be Gorguts, and really that Quebecois approach at its most aggressive. But there are also slicing, whirling passages reminiscent of Ulcerate and plenty of Crytposy bass pops to satiate any tech-death fan. What really sticks out with Dischordia is that they manage to take the elements and tropes common to this style and implement them in subtly varied ways throughout the album. Take breakdowns and slam parts, for instance. The opener “Minds of Dust” is five minutes of auditory violence and around the 1:15 mark, there’s a beatdown riff that flirts with slam without pulling the listener all the way into the gutter. “The Wheel” goes a step further around the two-minute mark by unleashing a deranged take on a breakdown that feels like the song has gotten too heavy for its own good and is just falling apart rather than being an intentional open battering. Then closer, “Le Petit Mort” goes into a full-tilt breakdown complete with high-hat hits and open space in a more stereotypical but still crushingly heavy manner.
Similarly, they approach guitar playing from many angles that all fall under the appropriate wild death metal umbrella. “Bodies of Ash” opens with what is essentially a sped-up Meshuggah riff, while “Spirits of Dirt” sounds like they took their chords and strapped them into an electric chair. The band doesn’t quite tread into full-on leads except for some pseudo-Thordendale nonsense that gets unleashed on the closer. No, more often than not, a flourishing run is thrown into the mix, teasing a lead that never comes to fruition. Or, you get “Spirits of Dirt,” where there’s a chaotic mini-lead that builds but is mixed low to sound more like some ethereal presence rather than a showcase.
Let’s bring it back to the flute now. What Dischrodia does so much better than many of their peers worshiping at the altar of Gorguts is create atmosphere and deftly implement breaks from the madness. There are no dedicated interlude tracks but most songs offer some sort of break passage or intro that uses less traditional instruments and layered sounds to create a haunting world within the metal madness. Some of these are only about 15-seconds long, while others last more than a minute, but they are all deeply impactful to the experience.
Around three minutes into “Bodies of Ash,” is when we get our first one with chimes and one-off piano notes that lead to a pretty but haunting flute passage fitting for the theme of a horror movie doll’s dream sequence. When the heaviness returns, the guitars initially match the piano passage from just before, creating a seamless transition despite the jarring aural shift. “Spirits of Dirt” takes only 40 seconds before launching you into another fever dream of chimes, xylophones and bells. “The Carriage” opens with an atmospheric passage that has the flute more subtly blended into the mix to support the build of the clean guitars. Pivoting the approach late in the album, “Purifying Flame” doesn’t use any non-traditional instruments in its clean passage and, instead, let’s the bass drive the song while the clean guitars pluck notes that feel like they were pulled straight from the Blasphemous soundtrack.
The atmospherics aren’t always built from breaks in the song, either. “Le Petit Mort” utilizes dramatic choral-style singing in the background during one of its heaviest passages and sounds like you just went through the fog door to fight some building-sized demon in Bloodborne. The approach throughout varies, but the way they play the clean guitars in the atmospheric passages also provides a sense of a recurring motif that helps tie everything together as one big journey.
Triptych has a nearly hour-long runtime, so this is not a casual listen. With Colin Marston at the board for mixing and mastering this style of music, you know there will be subtle new things coming to your attention with every listen. Additionally, it would’ve been interesting to see them utilize the flute as another agent of discord more regularly wrapped into the heavy parts, similar to how Full of Hell used the trumpet in their collaboration with Merzbow.
Ultimately, the flute’s utilization will stand out as one of the more unique elements of this album, even though it is used relatively sparingly. That being said, Triptych is written in a way where the core elements of Dischordia’s tech-death are present in every song but implemented in different ways, ensuring that each track has a unique feel and something to look forward to despite a long run time.
If you like Gorguts, there’s no reason you shouldn’t check this out.
If you like hearing bands toy with established formulas and create something fresh, this should be on your playlist.
If you just like challenging music, this one is worth a shot.
After more than a dozen listens, I still plan to make several more before I feel like I’ll have a full grasp on this monster of an album.
