Review Summary: Nothing short of musical evil and chaos, no moment in this album is safe. The grievous claw marks of the album will always show in the canvas.
What Passes For Survival (2017)
"Down in the drowned boiler room
Some cold soul stirs
It turns in its lonely repose
To recall memories it never birthed
Who would mourn them, those pinioned fools
Now spared their sorry fate:
To subsist on the bitter fruit
That passes for survival, in these vile final days?"
Outre is a word I often find myself seeing around in regards to the modern "Disso-tech" scene, or "post-death". What term you'll hear most varies depending on who you talk to, is it a scene or is it something bordering avant-garde? That's mostly down to opinion, and I am firm in the belief that the aforementioned scene is definitely just a scene, it's also home to many bands that simply imitate each other causing it to be a stagnant mess of who sounds the most like Gorguts-but-not-really.
Startlingly reminiscent of the orthodox black-metal scene, where nearly every band imaginable attempts to - and fails to with very few exceptions - properly emulate Deathspell Omega in a way that doesn't feel like a shameless rip off, or my personal favourite, sound exactly the same as what might as well amount to B-sides of their material but under a different name, such as Antinomian, who certainly do xerox well enough that it's not unlistenable, but you can tell that there was no oasis of creativity to be found there.
But as I have said before, there is definitely an oasis of creativity secluded amongst the countless Demilich, Ulcerate and Gorguts clones within the post-death scene. That oasis comes from Pyrrhon, a band who pack so much inventive madness into their material that it barely resembles what I could traditionally call death metal, with influences such as crust punk, grindcore, noise and improvisational composition genres such as free jazz, Pyrrhon for the last 2 full albums and the last 2 EP's have made some of the most outre music I have ever heard in my entire life.
The Mother of Virtues was my first exposure to them, and I initially wasn't expecting much of anything really, but after my first listen I just couldn't find myself tearing away from the album. Something about it was so compelling, the atmosphere was disgusting, like being locked in a cellar filled with the absolute nadir of sensory abuse. The moments of reprieve offered on the album only served to amplify the feelings of exhaustion, anxiety, and desperation that the louder parts of the album cause.
Mother of Virtues, while almost perfect, definitely rides the ALMOST PERFECT tagline well enough that the faults are too obvious to me. For one, the drumming is not bad, but definitely unmemorable. Either because of production - most likely production - or because Alex Cohen just wasn't at his best during recording, and I highly doubt that part. The aforementioned production suffers a little from almost perfect syndrome quite a bit, the reason for this being that the organic and honest feel sometimes gets disrupted heavily when the sheer amount of *** going on sometimes overstays its welcome, drowning itself out at often inappropriate times, a reverberating choir it is not, but definitely still doesn't quite sound good in the grand scheme of things.
Well, on comes What Passes For Survival and Steven Schwegler joins the hydra as the new drummer, almost immediately rectifying any of the issues I might've had with the not terrible, but not memorable drumming on the previous albums and EP's. Immediately the fact that I can actually hear him probably indicates that Colin Marston has somehow gotten even better as a producer in the time since I heard Mother of Virtues, which while definitely a very organic album, had some issues where there was an overabundance of sounds that drowned out other sounds. Not all of the time, mind you, but occasionally. Which sometimes cheapened the honest, organic and fleshy sound of the album.
What Passes For Survival has actually managed to do what I previously thought to be impossible, it somehow sounds fresher, more honest, more demented. It manages to exceed Mother of Virtues and more, not even sounding like the same band some of the time, with a completely different approach to the style of pure musical evil that I have come to know Pyrrhon for. The influences from the last EP rear their head in the three track "suite"; The Unraveling, which don't quote me if I'm wrong, seems like the improvisational tracks on Running out of Skin, mostly due to the short length, the extreme chaos and noisy approach also help and make me think of a significantly more metal Naked City or some other John Zorn monstrosity.
What Passes For Survival sounds even less traditional death metal than Mother of Virtues, sounding a lot more like the band listened to a LOT of crust punk and grindcore. There are a few inklings of almost Morbid Angel riffage throughout the album such as The Unraveling, and the latter parts of Tennessee. But for the most part, I can tell the dirtier and more simplistic sound was their ultimate goal, because while this album is technically insane, it's not quite as complex on initial listens as Mother of Virtues is. Mother of Virtues mostly had a Deathspell meets Gorguts approach to the songwriting, with Dylan going from explosive grindcore riffs to venomous dissonance at any given moment and some immensely skronky death metal riffs ala Obscura on songs such as Sleeper Agent.
What Passes For Survival instead has mostly stripped away the atmospheric chord sections, and has gone balls to the wall insane. There are very few moments of reprieve on this album, mostly being confined to the beginnings of tracks, most notably Tennessee. The guitarwork has instead focused on intensely dissonant barrages of chords, pseudo-nonsense soloing and violent skronky riffs, often switching between them within the same songs as the need arises.
The bass is very clear, and continues to add that sickly yellow touch to the music that I know and love, but definitely a lot faster now. And as I mentioned with Steven before, his drumwork fits absolutely perfectly. The subdued, the intense, the off beat. He pulls all of it off extremely deftly without any hiccups. The man is a monster and I do hope to hear more of him soon. The songs on here generally seem to resemble my personal favourite from Mother, Invisible Injury, being ferocious and snarling, while having brief moments where acerbic sludge drips into my ears and adds to the nausea bit by bit.
The personal highlight of the album to me though is vocalist Doug Moore and his abrupt vocal evolution. Doug on previous albums had a very distinctive mid-register raspy shriek, with the occasional dips into demonic low roars that perfectly complemented the music. On What Passes For Survival, his rasps have gotten more fierce, more desperate, almost strained even. His lows have somehow gotten even more disgusting and they are the true highlight of his performance this time around, overtaking many songs such as Empty Tenement Spirit and Trash Talk Landfill with the abyssal force they command. Doug also still has his pseudo-spoken word and off kilter raspy singing voice present on the album though, mostly in Tennessee which for the entire first 4 minutes is the calmest part of the album, featuring his grotesque lyricism and disturbing narrative at the forefront far more than any other song on the album.
What Passes For Survival is one of the few albums I have been able to say sounds like the purest example of musical evil. Death by Teitanblood and Fas - Ite by Deathspell Omega are the only two to share that title besides this album. This album is an achievement in modern metal, nay, modern music, as it explores the many possible conventions in extreme music, turns them on their head and with nothing but the highest amount of passion and skill, stitches them back together into a morbid tapestry of urban decay, suffering, and personal demons.
Pyrrhon are a gift. A disgusting gift of the deepest depths of aphotic sludge, but a gift nonetheless. I wish more bands were as amazing as they are.
