Tetragrammacide – Typhonian Wormholes: Indecipherable Antistructural Formulae Review

12Jacket_3mm_spine_all_sides.inddI like to think, two years into my writing gig here at Angry Metal Guy Industries Unlimited, Inc., that I would have a pretty solid idea as to how to approach a review at any given time. Listen to an album over and over, look up band’s page, throw together some lofty or detrimental words, give it a number, and *BOOM!* Pictures, publish, print, next. But there will come a time when a band puts out an album where you’re perplexed as to how to approach, grade, or even talk about it. Not because you’ve never heard anything like this before, but because it makes you seriously contemplate where it places on the numerical scale, or how successful it is in conveying its very intent? Typhonian Wormholes: Indecipherable Antistructural Formulæ, the debut EP by Indian blackened noisemongers Tetragrammacide, is such an album.

What does it sound like? It’s hatred boiled down to its impurest, most vile form. It’s two members, Uragnostic Eliminator and M.Opium (whose jobs in the band are completely unknown, even after much researching), care not for your feelings, your eardrums, or for your frivolous, foolish desires for such things like hooks, melodies, or anything close to resembling what you would call “structure.” This is the sound of armageddon, and not the sound of “doom metal” as the folder I was given described it as [That was a trap.Steel Druhm]. This is the sound of two men going to all-out war on your eardrums for 21 minutes and not letting up until you go deaf, dumb, and utterly liquidated from the amount of sheer vitriol given forth by Typhonian Wormholes.

But there’s this problem, and I’m sure you scrolled down to the embedded video, pressed “Play,” and figured it out all on your little lonesome. The entire album sounds that bad. So bad that, even on low settings, I had to take my headphones off, or put on Anaal Nathrakh or Voices. Y’know, something with melody and dynamics. This is Enbilulugugal without the humor or irony. This isn’t engaging, gripping, exciting, or horrific.

Tetragrammacide_2015aSpeaking of Enbilulugugal, if you haven’t already figured it out by looking at the dynamic range score below, Tetragrammacide borrowed the Californians’ XBox Kinect, which seems to have broken en route to India, and plugged it into what sounds like a barely-functional Hello Kitty tape recorder to chronicle this monstrosity. There are guitars in there somewhere, there may or may not be bass, and the cymbals sound like me throwing my pots and pans at my neighbors after they had the gall to serve me a mixed candy dish of M&Ms and Skittles. The vocals are deep and guttural, but serve as distant background noise. But again, this cares not for my listening enjoyment or for my mental well-being. It exists just to piss you off.

And that’s where I’m torn. Typhonian Wormholes is relentless. Seething. Acrimonious, even. There is nothing even remotely enjoyable on here, and that’s the intent. But do you see yourself coming back to it after listening to it just once? Hell, would your life seem any better, more rich and fulfilling, if you let this go noisily to the wayside? Because honestly, there’s nothing to see or hear on this EP otherwise.


Rating: 0.0/5.0
DR: 0 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Website: tetragrammacide.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/tetragrammacide
Releases Worldwide: November 9th, 2015

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