By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 30/03/2018
Label: Blood Music
On their latest, “The Contagion in Nine Steps”, Lychgate display
classically influenced chops while destroying metal clichés one mind bending
track at a time
“The Contagion
in Nine Steps” CD//DD//LP
track listing
1. Republic
2. Unity of Opposites
3. Atavistic Hypnosis
4. Hither Comes the Swarm
5. The Contagion
6. Remembrance
The Review:
A lot of metal’s most egregiously cringe
worthy moments come from the old-school pomp and grandiosity that tries to
claim some sort of continuity with European classical music – or, more
specifically, the Romanticism of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Whether Malmsteen or his various clones
cluttering Guitar Centers and pay to play venues across continents, it isn’t so
much that they assert their love and fealty to the “true geniuses” of music,
but that the scope is so damned narrow.
Really, the truly gifted, the real avant garde metal musicians, know that
there are actual living composers (or at least those who just recently died)
who bent the terms “classical music” to new, unknown dimensions – Arvo Part,
Gyorgy Ligety, even Philip Glass and of course the occasional grind saxophonist
John Zorn SHOULD, but rarely DO color the palettes of classically influenced
musicians of all stripes. It is god
damned remarkable that Lychgate, in just five
years, have established themselves as one of the most impressive avant garde
metal groups since Celtic Frost. On their latest, “The Contagion in Nine Steps”, they display classically influenced
chops while destroying metal clichés one mind bending track at a time.
Introduced by an extended organ solo, “Republic” feels the most immediately
“classical” piece of the record – I of course had visions of Bach and the
masked Phantom pounding away in the sewers of Paris – but the off-kilter
rhythms and pulsating dissonance from guest keyboardist Vladimir
Antonov-Charsky don’t settle into any comfortable black metal or classically Romantic
patterns. Greg Chandler’s vocals are
paradoxically distinct and inhuman – like some beastly orator screaming into a
chasm. The clean, operatic background
vocals serve as bizarre counterpoint but it all hangs together in a difficult,
fascinating equilibrium. “Unity of Opposites”, a display of
guitar virtuosity, parries back and forth between time signatures and musical
modes – basically black math metal. The
clean vocal harmonies anchoring each break in frenetic riffing are
breathtaking.
“Atavistic Hypnosis”, a
doom-indebted dirge that builds over a nearly seductive baritone growl,
contorts into minor key arpeggios and painful dissonance. The multi-octave vocal ranges cropping up
during the piece are breathtaking – there are few vocal virtuosos pushing
themselves to these heights in any metal subgenre. The bizarre, lurching rhythm of “Hither Comes the Swarm”, feels,
weirdly, like a jazzed up Morbid Angel. Vallely’s drumming on the album is
incredible, but here he gets some really loose moments to color with
flourishes, before launching into one of the most gratifying blast beat breaks
I’ve ever heard.
“The Contagion” and
“Remembrance” tone down some of the
acrobatics and tread in collective transcendence. More than the prior songs, Lychgate seems to be focused on group dynamics; there are
shred-worthy guitar scales, but they are countered by precise death growls, or clean
operatic leads. “Remembrance” is like a dark reflection of Handel’s “Messiah”. With layered vocals, complex
harmonies between guitars and bass, and shimmering tones, this could be the closing
of a requiem mass. Yet there are
passages of sepulchral quiet uncharacteristic of a bombastic Wagnerian
finale. Like every moment of Lychgate’s “The
Contagion in Nine Steps”, there are no simple, tried and true “classical”
shortcuts on “Remembrance”. It is the masterful summation of a difficult
record – one that won’t be for everyone, and certainly not for purists. But Lychgate are operating
at an entirely different level on this record, and will likely swell their
growing cult following before they even round ten years as an operating metal
powerhouse. Consider me one of the
converted.
The Contagion in Nine Steps” is available here
