Review Summary: [ctrl + c]
Every bearded cunt and his mum seems to be in a profoundly serious metal band these days. Even the most dour King of Fight Pits — bald, tattooed, adorned with a goatee that must tickle his nips in the shower, potentially racist — must understand how silly this all is. Remember when that bloke called Gaahl or somesuch fondled a wine glass for a solid 20 seconds before sternly telling an interviewer that the primary ideology or idea that served as inspiration for Gorgoroth's music consisted of the word "Satan"? Was he being serious?
Believe it or not, there are people who would answer that question in the form of a dissertation, no matter how innocently or rhetorically it may have slipped from the mouth of the enquirer. Fear not, we don't actually have to worry about the answer today, because [ctrl + v]=
Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus is a technical death metal album about mind-invading aliens canvassing time and space for lifeforms that might serve as useful vessels for the proliferation of their race. Does that sound familiar to you, or does the rock you sleep under block out high BPM/NPM frequencies? The average net-addled metal fan — long haired, visually impaired, is growing at least part of a beard, potentially racist — has heard this all before, Gigan. GO HOME!
Consider this, though: none of the other great bands that do this exact thing released an album this year. Consider further: [ctrl + v]=
Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus is the most fun I've had listening to a metal album in a colloquial minute. The guitars do CRAZY things. Don't even ask me what, because I've never owned a pedal more elaborate than the footswitch that snapped the prebuilt FX on my Valvetronix amp on and off. This qualifies me to tell you that the man credited with creating "all music" on this release, Eric Hersemann, is WAY better and/or richer than me, and doesn't rate his drummer, Nathan Colton, as a "musician". Stink.
The sole genius behind this record's music also uses some of his effects wizardry on his vocals. At a couple of points he even sounds like an alien! It's a little hard to parse on first listen, but if you have a little patience and dig a little deeper you'll find some astonishingly descriptive and paradoxical prose: "
Spinning uncontrollably / Raised and inverted yet stationary". Where else might you hear that kind of thing? Probably on that Mount Eerie album, actually. But
this album has "
irradiatеd antennae discharging a sub-sonic vibrational distortion beam at thе behest of insectizoid overlords". Suck on that, Phil Elverum.
While it's easy to lambast sci-fi techdeath for a multitude of reasons, none of them
really stick unless the band at hand get the balance wrong. The genre's spectrum ranges from lurid histrionics (think
Terminal Redux, and then unthink it just as quickly and don't @ me regarding which genre I'm talking about) to joyless self-serious misery (think of bands that peddle Ulcerate's less flattering traits). Gigan have managed to split this difference directly down the middle on [ctrl + v]=
Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus. Its death metal can be taken perfectly seriously on its own, whether it's making a semitonal riff sound like a million notes or squealing out solos so squeamish about harmony that Morbid Angel might pack their pants. The performances here hold steady with both classic and contemporary stylings, and are further enhanced by a few straight-faced experiments: a couple of wailing walls of sound (the one in which "Dagonic Acolytes" are attempting a mindmeld is a teeth-cracking test of mental fortitude in the best of ways) break up proceedings effectively, and a subtle shuffling of extreme metal stylings bring a deft dynamism to the table. Gigan's tendency towards the more obviously performative lands too: guitars are pitch-lowered or down-tuned or something until they sound bitcrushed across a handful of critically heavy moments, and "Erratic Pulsitivity and Horror" shits out silly guitar sounds but effectively bends them towards the track's decentering heaviness in a fashion that'd make even our goateed King of Fight Pits crack a smile mid-headbang.
It's this simultaneous having and enjoying of cake that makes [ctrl + v]=
Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus stick out in a genre that's starting to feel a little played out. Don't let the aesthetics fool you on this one; Gigan know what they are doing, and they do it effectively enough to convert both ends of the spectrum. They probably shouldn't be taken too seriously, and they seriously shouldn't be underestimated.
