Mutant Breakfast's 2022 Selects (Part 1)
Bigger blogs that rely on the promo bin for material have been calling 2022 another slump year handicapped by “post-COVID” woes, but here at Mutant Breakfast we are happy to report that the underground-beneath-the-underground is alive and well. We are thrilled to make our "Selects" and their companion writeups the first of many year-end bonanzas, as we continue bringing you music from the vanguard of truly oddball, extreme metal. Here and in the forthcoming second part to this annual review, we look to do more than aggregate releases we individually liked, and instead focus on those that earned respect from all three mutants—in addition to representing our shared sonic and philosophical ethos. Top-tier, elite picks from all our personal lists missed the cut, as we favored releases that didn’t receive the acclaim they deserved, culling together eighteen (mostly) micro-label/self-released drops from bands in eight different countries. Rest assured, as long as you have an adventurous palate, there’s worthwhile death metal (DM), black metal (BM), and whatever-you-call-it metal dripping from the ceiling down here in the sewers. Stick out your tongue, and taste the grime!
Honorable Mention: Toughness - The Prophetic Dawn (Godz of War)
Brought to our table by Mutant Trojan, this wonky DM dish makes a grotesque of metal’s staple bass-guitar combo. The unnervingly dainty fretless and larval six-string slime all over one another like Shelob and Jabba the Hutt in some sort of gargantuan, off-putting cabaret. Equally impressive, the slower and heavier bits of The Prophetic Dawn make an unlikely case for the year’s best doom-tinged DM. The record lacks variety, but no more than Tzompantli’s Tlazcaltiliztli; it needs better editing, but not so much as Desecresy’s Unveil in the Abyss. If those groovy outings tickled your fancy, you should let this strange beast creep in.
-Mutant Geccho
Honorable Mention: Noble Déchet - Astral Déchu (Self-released)
Beginning as a Quebecois take on the warmth of Dutch bands like Fluisteraars, Noble Dechet’s mysterious creator has sought to deconstruct medieval BM, as if through the lens of severe ergot poisoning. “Loup-Renard”, however, quickly dispels any notions of gimmickry after its seemingly disparate vocalisations and non-sequitur instrumentation begin to congeal into more comprehensible segments, as if a crowded market began to dance in manic unison, cohering to the point of an evocative climax. Subsequent tracks smuggle innovative melodies and herky-jerky bass theatrics into similarly Boschian scenes, and slowly the album’s internal logic begins to explain itself. The musical equivalent of reading Anti-Oedipus while on acid with a long-lost lover at RenFair.
-Mutant Trojan
There's been a noticeable uptick in the quality of deathgrind these past few years, especially from lesser-known, up-and-coming bands. A spotlight has shifted, and the baton once clutched by veteran acts like Napalm Death, Cattle Decapitation, and Cephalic Carnage has been passed to a new generation. This changing of the guard has resulted in a much-needed revitalization and variegation of the subgenre's core aesthetics, spiking the original formula with fresh sounds from unlikely sources. In our estimation, Spanish auteurs Ósserp led this new pack in 2022. On their third album Els nous cants de la Sibil·la, the band siphon the raw electricity from basement-show hardcore to animate a new Frankenstein's monster stomping and burning its way into our blackened hearts. This album isn’t just a mosh-pit agitator, either—digging beneath the grind-blasts, breakdowns, and tempo shifts reveals some of the catchiest riffs of 2022.
-Mutant Crisper
№ 15: Skythala - Boreal Despair (I, Voidhanger / Moonlight Cypress Archetypes)
How funny—and wondrous!—that Ryan Clackner, Tennessean master of southern-gothic BM, has crafted his most tautly-conceived record yet by drawing on early-twentieth-century Russian neoclassical masters. Boreal Despair is an ode to Stravinsky and Prokofiev via trv-ly ‘symphonic’ BM acts like Athar Aghanon and Lychgate, only fitted with lighter doses of those hallucinatory, genre-bending smoke bombs from Colin Marston’s and Will Skarstad’s utility belts. The record could make good dosing music for non-metalheads expanding their sonic (and potentially pharmacological) horizons, what with the way its plastic-sounding oboe skitters up and down the winding and sometimes glowering riffs. Though, admittedly, the record meanders by design, its being less than an hour long makes for a relatively well-edited I, Voidhanger release in and of itself. Really, Skythala's debut passes as quickly as any other BM entry on our list, though it rings in at 57 minutes. It’s a compelling, non-epic epic, from one of the year’s most important metal artists.
-Mutant Geccho
№ 14: Krallice - Psychagogue (Self-released)
Long since I first heard the grandeur of Dimensional Bleedthrough and fell in love with USBM forever, Krallice have consistently provided many more reasons to appreciate the subgenre. Psychagogue, however, is one of the most convincing – the switcheroo between McMaster and Barr, and the integration of Marston’s synthwork (honed in moving-yet-indulgent side projects like Driftloss and Xazraug), has led to one of the most evocative tracks of the band’s career. On "Deliberate Fog," the bass threads like a bird in deep mist through the gothic guitar and immersive ambience. While it is true that every recent Krallice record has felt like another great renaissance for the band, the profound spirit of their first four records is most palpable here, presented with mature concision.
-Mutant Trojan
№ 13: Adharcáil - Adharcáil (Self-released)
Including an EP on a "best of" list is a dangerous gambit, but the three tracks that comprise Adharcáil's debut are so triumphantly unorthodox (and downright vibey) that we couldn't help ourselves. Recalling his days in Gorguts—or more recently, Edenic Past—Colin Marston's mongrelized symphonic death/doom brainchild draws liberally from fringe '90s Finndeath, avant-garde synth music, and all manner of esoteric psychedelia in a way that pays homage to its (arcane) influences while transmuting them into something wholly new. Will Smith's gurgly Demilich impressions are worth the price of admission alone, but it's the cabalistic pageantry that kept us coming back all year. There's an uncanny zealotry lurking beneath the surface of these songs, as if they were hymns of worship to a bestial, wormhole-reigning demigod.
-Mutant Crisper
№ 12: Daeva - Through Sheer Will and Black Magic (20 Buck Spin)
In the 40th anniversary year of Venom's Black Metal, these blackened thrash maniacs drink deep from the Geordie hellraisers’ well of blood-infused moonshine, albeit employing overwhelmingly dense production and lightning-fast guitar acrobatics. “Arena at Dis” demonstrates how excellent songwriting enables the band to indulge in utter cacophony without losing themselves or their audience, while “Luciferian Return” proves that this squad are capable of some truly dramatic climaxes. For those who want BM that feels like an adrenaline rush, and who yearn for immediacy in the midst of the genre’s wallowing solemnity – this one is for you.
-Mutant Trojan
№ 11: Esoctrilihum - Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh (I, Voidhanger)
Waiting on my vinyl for this one, which is obnoxious, because cracking this stubborn nut in Esoctrilihum’s daunting discography hinges on one’s engagement with its prickly sonic assault. What Mutant Crisper said resonated with me, when he wrote that Consecration sounded like an audiophile’s go at raw BM. There is a synthetic edge to the programmed drumming and demented synth strings, which Esoc’s Asthâghul began fiddling with on last year’s dungeon-synth-leaning Dy'th Requiem for the Serpent Telepath. The magic sparks fly higher, though, when sparer uses of these hollowed, flinty elements meet the cold hard magnesium of Asthâghul's fullest embrace of power-chord riffage in the blackened-DM mode. Some of us even wondered whether the guitars’ tendency toward rhythm (and ferocity) over melody made Consecration the strangest—and one of the best—war metal outings of the year. A tough nut, indeed.
-Mutant Geccho