Extreme metal is a brutish, ugly and wholly negative style of musical expression almost by default, but Dyodyo Asema – a collaboration piece between Gnaw Their Tongues and Alkerdeel – resides squarely in the filthiest fringes of the genre.
The first conspirator is Dutch blackened noise project Gnaw Their Tongues, lead by the mysterious Mories. Declaring once that “My Body is Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple, It’s a Repulsive Pile of Sickness” and extending an invitation to “Spit at Me and Wreak Havoc on My Flesh,” this perverse Dutchman is particularly known for bathing in themes of bondage, torture and seedy misanthropy. Belgian sludge group Alkerdeel comprise the other half of Dyodyo Asema’s makeup, and while they practice a more conventional style of raw, dirty sludge, they are no less steeped in negativity.
The result is a single, 20 minute long hate dirge encompassing elements of drone, noise and black metal. The piece begins with a secretory drone riff that marries the dank malevolence of Wormphlegm with the familiar slow-motion trudge of Sunn O))), complete with choking noises, buzzing insects and a vocalist that sounds like Alan Dubin of Khanate being waterboarded. It eventually hatches into a monster of muffled, deformed black metal during the song’s midsection before slithering back into the pulpy, droney filth from which it was birthed for the last few minutes of its life cycle. To maximize disgust, check out the mesmerizing music video which comes across as a urine-soaked homage to E. Elias Merhige’s film Begotten in its final act, complete with insects, larvae, syringes, and a guy writhing up and down on a bed.
Dyodyo Asema is a hard record to recommend because art of this kind – that is, music made in total spite of its audience – simply cannot be held to much of normal critique. By all indications, Alkerdeel and Gnaw Their Tongues came together for the sole purpose of expressing deep disgust for life on planet Earth – from mosquito to man and everything in between. Is it any surprise that the result is so recklessly inaccessible, even to folks as desensitized to transgressive artistic expression as us metalheads often are?
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Label: ConSouling Sounds
Websites: alkerdeel.bandcamp.com/album/dyodyo-asema | alkerdeel.consouling.be
Release Dates: Out Worldwide on 01.01.2014
