Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light

Technical progressive/avant-garde is a difficult genre to succeed in. In order to keep people coming back, you have to not sound like you're ripping off Gorguts, Ulcerate, DSO, or the likes. You have to incorporate your own twists and turns to make it sound unique to set you apart from the 3,000 other bands trying to sound dissonant and cool and simultaneously make it engaging so that people want to hear it again. Added upon those basic challenges of making good music is the challenge of succeeding in a genre that is already one of the least accessible genres of music while using compositional tools like dissonance that send even many metalheads running to the hills. More often than not, a band just ends up creating a wall of dissonant noise that only tires and bores the listener (cough, cough, Altarage), or gets their head stuck up their butt creating "atmusfeeric" noises (hey there, Blus Aut Nord) or just creates a lifeless ripoff of the genre's greats. But, every so often, a band will create a dissonant masterpiece, a testament to the ideals of creativity and thinking outside the box without ripping off Ulcerate or another dissonant legend. Bands like Pyrrhon, Gorguts (who's done it a lot), and Redemptor have made albums that are masterful, unique, jaw-dropping and unconventional. That pantheon is about to be joined by Ingurgitating Oblivion.

it's hard to describe these guys because they create a sound that's all their own on this release. Imagine Defeated Sanity taking Gorguts and Ulcerate pills by the gallon and lacing it with some DSO, Cynic, and Atheist. That’ll give you a 'basic' idea of what to expect.

The album kicks off with the song Amid the Offal, Abide With Me. The song starts off with 40 seconds of soft atmospheric noise, then kicks in with one of the best opening riffs I’ve heard before. That riff alone is worth talking about because it is the perfect example of how the album functions. It’s a groovy, dissonant riff that sounds not too different from something you would find in a BDM album. It’s a perfectly crafted riff that starts off on a crushing note than goes into some dissonant harmonies before descending into chaos. The song is the perfect example of how brutality and memorable yet innovative songwriting can work together to create something amazing. The song crashes and twists and writhes in an unpredictable, serpentine structure, laying down riff after riff. And frick are those riffs mouthwatering. The riffs alternate between groovy, technical and spazzed-out weird while remaining cold, dissonant, and almost catchy at times. Sometimes they will have a motif, or variations of the main riff, lead the song, which is great. By doing so, the allow the song to flow without sounding redundant. They only sound slightly like the original riff, but they make listening to the song much more immersive and easier to follow. The song ends with some very eerie, dissonant riffs and nice, jazzy drumming.

Th next song, a 22-minute behemoth, with an absurdly long title, is amazing. It starts off with a cool, jazzy dissonant part reminiscent of Atheist. The song then kicks in on a crushing note. What is enjoyable about this song is that this band knows that it’s okay to REPEAT a good riff more than once. This makes digesting the riff-tornado this song is much more enjoyable and more engaging. This song is one my favorites, packed full of good riffs. This song has the best balance of dissonance and more traditional BDM riffs and avant-garde progressive moments. The only complaint is that the atmospheric section at the end of the song is too long. But, thanks to the skip button, this can be bypassed without ruining the listening experience.

The title track is a monster. It’s one of the more varied tracks, fluctuating between heavy dissonant riffing interspersed with dissonant harmonies and proggy atmospheric sections. The song is unpredictable, yet it pulls your attention in constantly. The solos and harmonies create a stunning and coldly dissonant landscape. The drumming on this song is some of the most intense as well, and the way the vocalist uses his higher pitch rasps is very enjoyable. The piano section at the end is also really good. Most piano/acoustic sections in extreme metal are boring, predictable and don't really add to the song besides being a novelty. Here, though, it adds to the texture and mood progression and concludes it in an unpredictable yet extremely satisfying way.

The final track is probably the most divisive. I personally enjoyed the long, dissonant, jazzy jam, as it wasn't just some jazz being done to show that they're cool progressive guys. I feel like they use it to create moods, atmosphere, and feeling exceptionally well, though not everyone will enjoy it. The last two minutes or so are 'normal' death metal (at least by their standards) and concludes the song fantastically and energetically.

What makes this album so phenomenal is that while each track in itself is a masterpiece, yet all the songs flow into each other while being easily individually distinguishable. These guys create a genuinely engrossing and hypnotic quilt of mood, atmosphere, and textures together, and the album maintains this unique blend throughout the entire album without faltering. The riffs are absolutely amazing. The production fits the album's vision like a glove and is wonderfully balanced so that everything can be heard clearly. A special shoutout to the drummer: Lille Gruber takes this album to the next level. His drumming is ridiculously technical, smooth, and his fills are very creative and cool to listen to. The drumming never distracts from anything else going on though, serving to blend and enhance what's going on beautifully. His unique jazzy style and incredible brutal technicality, coupled with his penchant for endlessly creative fills, take this album to another level of perfection. No other drummer could have made the album as good with their drumming as Lille Gruber did on this album. Another shoutout to the vocalist, who sounds unique, and his growls carry their own distinctive personality. The nearest comparison would be a throatier, more in-your-face Steve Tucker.

If you haven't listened to this album, try it. A warning though: Go in with an open mind. This is an incredibly varied and eclectic album. It may take time to fully digest, but trust me, this album's magnificence will not be lost on you.

It’s no secret that Deathspell Omega, Gorguts and Ulcerate are beginning to become some of the most imitated bands in death metal today. All three of them have opened up more dissonant, atmospheric avenues for the genre to take, and it’s resulting in bands like Sunless, Baring Teeth, Artificial Brain and Ad Nauseam gaining a little bit of traction. Ingurgitating Oblivion could perhaps be grouped into this school of dissonant death metal but with a slight asterisk: while all of the bands I mentioned started off playing in the style, Ingurgitating Oblivion were a bit more of a conventional brutal death metal band, and appear to have taken a sudden stylistic shift into this territory with Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light. If this wasn’t so fucking intense and astonishing, I would be compelled to say this band was just hopping onto a bandwagon.

I wasn’t sure what to expect coming into this, being relatively unfamiliar with the band’s previous work, but this has got to be one of the most daring and unsettling albums I’ve heard in years. I’m reminded of when I first really “got” what Ulcerate was going for, but it took a half dozen listens for Everything is Fire to click, whereas Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light clicked right away. Opening up with “Amid the Offal, Abide With Me”, the riffs are punchy enough that the music remains immediately accessible and attention-grabbing, satisfying even the pickiest of brutal death metal fans, and then the album jumps off into uncharted territory, all punctuated by the jaw-dropping drum performance of Lille Gruber. Part of the reason Ingurgitating Oblivion was unable to break out of their shell before this album was because their previous drummer was much more straightforward in his approach. It wasn’t incompetent by any means, but it restricted the music to an extent. The band clearly wanted to push the horizons of their sound, and I can’t think of a better man to help them with the job than Gruber if I tried. His jazzy, off-beat wandering and organic snare tone give the music just the extra flourish it needs for the ambient exploration to be consistently interesting. It might just be by association, but I think I hear a bit more Defeated Sanity in the riffs during more brutal moments as well.

There are only four tracks on this album (including a 23 minute behemoth), and each one takes you on a ride from beginning to end. Despite the long, sustained buildups, Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light maintains a degree of unpredictability. You never knows quite when the gears are going to shift or when they’ll stop drudging about in a desolate atmosphere. The twists and turns are sudden, but nonetheless enjoyable. This is an album that so thoroughly nails the atmosphere it’s going for that it gets away with using a few spoken word samples here and there. I usually hate those and think they’re often an immediate atmosphere-killer (unless they’re short and placed at the very beginning of a song), but the rest of the music is so well-executed that it allows me to suspend my disbelief.

With slight tweaks in lineup and sound, Ingurgitating Oblivion have stepped their game up to a level on par with any band in this dissonant death metal movement. This shattered every expectation I had for it, and is easily one of the standout releases of 2017 so far. Any fans of intricate, tense and captivating death metal should give this a listen right away.

(Originally written for the Metal-Observer)