taps mic
Hey, is this thing on? Does Blogger still exist..? Now, wait just a second... I remember, back in my day, this used to be called Blogspot, Blogger. 🙄 Christ. Anyway, where do I even start? It's no secret that Slam-Minded has been on a really long hiatus. Life has been crazy, of course, given the global pandemic and just the general state of the world (gestures broadly at everything), but it seems like the tides have turned in the world of brutal death metal, and we've been getting a lot of really high-quality releases recently. Maybe all of these perverted psychopaths that comprise the slam bands of the world have just felt cooped-up and unable to properly express their sadistic rage throughout quarantine or something, but all I know is that releases from bands such as Ecchymosis, Decortication, Putrescent Seepage, and more have really blown me away over the past few months, and I haven't been as excited for the present and potential near-future of slam since the good ol' days, so that there is my reason to declare slam class back in session.
Grab your pencils, and prepare to take notes on the first topic in about five years...
Anal. Stabwound.
Yeah, really dumb name, and trust me, I get that. However, the name is absolutely the only not-mindblowing thing about this, a recently-formed project by a 15-year-old slam prodigy by the name of Nikhil Talwalkar. I have no idea how he does it; for all I know, he's a laboratory experiment that has taken the form of a small, long-haired, seemingly-emotionless teenager from Connecticut who performs solo covers of relatively-obscure slam tracks in a gorgeous loft studio at his house. I'm sure his parents are fans of the music, because I just can't imagine him getting all of the gear he has without their permission or knowledge, and I especially can't picture him shouting "alright, mom, I'll be down for dinner in five minutes, just let me finish my cover of 'Intravenous Semen Rehydration'!"
Anyway, I'm already getting off-topic, so let's shift our focus back. This kid is basically a genius, and it's fitting that we begin Slam-Minded once again with renewed vigor by diving into what could potentially become a future classic in our favored genre of sociopathic, ugly music.
The Visceral Sovereign is a lengthy and extremely-ambitious debut album that just dropped recently on Inherited Suffering Records (maybe you've heard of 'em before; y'know, the label that put out Ezophagothomia's debut... that one) and it is, put simply, one of the finest slabs of brutality that I have heard in a long time, written and performed by a single teenager, with a calculated finesse and a rather-intense focus and weightiness to it, while still deviating from some known formulas in intriguing ways, lending the album some devious memorability and surprising catchiness, perhaps sometimes in spite of its long running-time.
The album begins with a ringing, overture-like chord that immediately reminded me of something Condemned might have done in the days of Realms of the Ungodly, though it quickly becomes a blast-fest of epic proportions with chunky riffs and intense gutturals mingling with a surprisingly-sinister atmosphere that brings to mind Disentomb and the aforementioned Ezophagothomia with a blasting technique that is almost Putridity-like. Now, those are some great bands to be compared to right off the bat, and this wastes no time slamming everything in its wake. 1:40 into the very first track, "Spewed Forth From Ash," contains a disgusting slow slam that sets the tone for the next 53 minutes, which you're undoubtedly going to spend slavishly-headbanging to this absolutely killer release.
The scooped intro riff that starts the second track gave me "slamcore" vibes at first, which was a bit unnerving, but my fears were quickly allayed by a dexterous string-skipping section punctuated by lightspeed blasts and appropriately-placed pinch harmonics, somewhat like a combination of older Pathology and Putridity. The tasty, flavorful ride punctuations used in the drumming on this track (titled "Embryonic Encephalopathy;" brutal) are quite a bit more high-brow than you'd ever expect from a kid this age. In fact, pretty much all of this is superbly and tastefully-executed with a wildly-diverse scope of influences that really runs the gamut from atmospheric, darker undertones to the kind of jaw-droppingly technical and off-the-wall concepts Lille of Defeated Sanity fame utilizes quite a bit, especially in terms of drumming style/fills.
"Kingdom of Filth" is probably the least-good song here, as it feels a bit generic by comparison with some of the other stuff on order here, but we haven't even gotten to the part of the album that stacks three songs with run-times of 7+ minutes each almost right on top of one another. Seriously, it's pretty nuts, but we'll get to it soon. The slams in this track are kinda meat-and-potatoes, and the blasting deviations feel rather rote when looked at in a vacuum, but I can see this track operating as kind of a "microcosm" of the album in a sense, sort of showing off a taste of what this kid can do within the span of five or so minutes. There is a nice, slow, churning slam a little more than halfway through that opens back up into a weirdly epic moment featuring triumphant melodies, so maybe I'm being a little hard on it, after all. I'm rusty at this, and you're just going to have to deal with that. Sorry, not sorry.
The next couple tracks are excellent, functioning as an early "mid-point" of the album that shows a swing into a higher gear that has it developing into a more direct and cohesive whole with some disturbing and grotesque deviations along the way. The lurching slam at about 3:14 into "Endoparasitic Abomination" is a highlight of that track, showing off some sick rhythmic interplay that feels unique but still concretely "slam" in execution.
Track 5, "Fetal Feast," is of note as it is the first song on the album with a guest vocal feature. Now, this feature is probably the least exciting of the four that are on here, as I have no idea who the kid doing the vocals is (apparently his name is Jeron and he's the sole member of a project called Backyard Cannibalism that is very likely not as good as this) or what parts are actually him and what parts are Nikhil, but it is a feature nonetheless. Going forward in the album, as we reach the part where things get truly bonkers, there are three more features: the mighty Ángel Ochoa (ex-Condemned, Cephalotripsy) on track 7, the prolific Larry Wang (Coprocephalic, Gorepot, etc.) on track 9, and that other guy Jonathan Huber (ex-Pathology, ex-I Declare War) on track 10. The title track is where things start getting amazing, so we're not even close to done yet.At a length of 7:26, and with an opening like that (fucking sinister and foreboding as hell!), "The Visceral Sovereign" barrels forth with a set of subtly-epic riffs and a slower, more carefully-developing pace that remains subdued despite the speed of the blasts placed throughout. A darkly-melodic solo pops out just after the 2-minute mark, followed by some off-time, syncopated chunky riffs and dexterous blasts/fills. Also of note here is a section at 2:56 that seems like an homage to Defeated Sanity's "The Purging" (around 3:44 in that track), and you have no idea how much I literally just agonized over trying to remember exactly what "weird jazzy DS moment" that reminded me of. Anyway, this track just keeps fucking going and somehow never gets boring or stagnant, and even has some curveball change-ups in the form of dissonant chords that lend a harrowing atmosphere to the proceedings.
Ángel's feature in "Demiurge of Abhorrence" is disgusting, as expected, and the track itself is utterly fucking nuts right from the very beginning... case-in-point: what the absolute shit is happening at 21 seconds in? That riff/section would be absolutely-bonkers and insane for any band, never mind the fact that this is composed entirely by a literal child who can't even legally drive a car yet. It's so surreal to hear this and understand that, and I feel like I'm constantly flabbergasted by the quality of the composition and performance here. The very first few moments of "Disjunct Savagery" sound like a very Defeated Sanity inspired segment as well, and there are some slams here and there that really bring to mind stuff like Abnormity or Abominable Putridity in how fun yet caveman-like they are in their brutal simplicity.
Up next is the longest track, a monstrous 8-and-a-half-minute beast, awesomely-titled "Temporal Dissection" (cool/semi-nonsensical two-word song names are a weakness of mine, I admit). This track has some supreme Guttural Secrete vibes, specifically in its bringing together of a certain savage primality and a precision-laced assault of understated melodic elements in the service of an unnerving atmosphere. And, let's be honest, it's hard not to think of GS when considering slam/BDM tracks with disturbing qualities and longer run-times (recall "Clotting the Vacant Stare" off Nourishing the Spoil, if you would). Just about exactly halfway through this track a moment of calm arises, centered around an otherwise-empty, chorus-laden bass section that eventually coalesces into a furious hyper-blast surrounded by insistent slams. As it slows down again, Larry Wang's reverberating squeals and gutturals make themselves known among the deconstruction and subsequent rebuilding of intense heaviness as the track reaches finality by bringing back a surprisingly-melodic and epic riff from about 5 minutes prior. Now that's songwriting! Did I mention this dude is a fucking prodigy?!
The final track lays on the Disentomb-esque apocalyptic sensibilities pretty thick immediately, featuring some unusual and satisfying dissonance just like that band is known for, though the slams that come next are super-thick and thuggish which isn't something the referenced band is well-known for. This is a really good choice for an album closer, as it really focuses on density in composition... I mean, there's even another pretty good (albeit brief) solo that comes out of absolutely nowhere. The tempo-shifting/tempo-modulated slams at around the 3 minute mark are a highlight here for sure, and the genius of utilizing an element like that just a couple minutes after a more-straightforward/typical 8-noter is absolutely 100% not lost on me. 4:22 gives me extreme Organectomy vibes in how lurching and atypical (yet at the same time extremely-catchy) the particular slam construction is, and the last minute features some disgusting descending slams with triplet double-kick flair just because, y'know, Nikhil's just flexing on everyone, no big deal, whatever. This is just crazy good and, y'know what? It is one of the extreme few examples of an album of this type going absolutely hard-as-fuck for over 50 minutes without losing steam or ever getting uninteresting for longer than thirty-seconds at a time. He knows how to write this type of music, and it doesn't ever sound forced or lazy. It's super natural sounding and that is important to me. As a long-time supporter of this scene, and as someone with a very keen ear for what is and isn't phoned-in, tacky, and/or unnecessary in this specific type of music, I can with certainty say that this kid is going places. He's more talented than most other people playing brutal death metal of any type, and I can't wait to see what he does next. For one Nikhil Talwalkar, the only thing to do is to ascend into the highest echelons of slamminess, and I hope I have convinced you, faithful Slam-Minded reader, to follow his journey as well.
Below are links to his YouTube channel, as well as a link to Inherited Suffering's Bandcamp page so you can throw your hard-earned cash at this young man and the label that has placed its trust in him. 2021 seems like it will be a great year, as (in mine and Logan's opinion, anyway) slam seems to be undergoing a much-needed renaissance, and therefore I'm excited to say that it's both extremely weird and superbly-gratifying to be able to declare Slam-Minded existent once again! Hopefully now we can try to not have five year gaps between posts; fingers crossed, eh?
Until next time...
Stay fucking brutal and sick, fellow brutal death metal devotees...
―――――――――――――――――――――
Relevant Links:
Posts
