Reviews, interviews, articles, and other blather about music from the mind of Yugoboy

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Locrian - Infinite Dissolution

Locrian
Infinite Dissolution


                In the solar system of metal, speed metal bands occupy that Mercury orbit, racing around the sun, completing a year’s worth of notes in eighty-eight days.  Death metal’s orbit comes in around Earth and Mars, all noisy and raw.  The infinite variety of asteroid designs in the more traditional power metal and thrash realms complete the inner solar system of tight, loud, and hard music.  Beyond lie the more sedate gas giants where bands like Zu, Hope Drone and Locrian laze through their orbits.  Locrian’s Infinite Dissolution moves sedately through its landscape of emptiness, animated nonetheless by the solar gravitational pull of metal – the photonic wind of guitars and powerful drums.
                 Infinite Dissolution opens with the distortion-heavy “Arc of Extinction,” a track that feels like it’s building towards something before ending in nothing; an apt musical metaphor for a band that explores “[u]rban decay, environmental destruction… and post-apocalyptic themes.”   The trio forces themselves to explore all these heavy themes with naught but instrumental tools.  The very few vocals on the album scream primal rage into the void without giving voice to their pain.
                Founders Andre Foisy on guitar and Terrence Hannum playing keyboards fill the remainder of the album’s tracks feature much “cleaner” music, stowing away the distortion pedal for use another day.  The third member of this trio, experimental musician Stephen Hess bringing a creative mass of electronics, and banging the drums helps the tempo  within each track to vary and skew and meander, but never does the void ever get filled or the pain ever get solace.

                In a busy, noisy, pain-filled, depressing, and soul-crushing world, taking a quiet hour of exploration with Locrian cannot be undervalued.  These gents have gifted us something magical: a collection that describes this world without getting trapped by it, carrying us with them above and beyond, but never forgetting.

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