夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker) - Scopofoboexoskelett (Sentient Ruin)
Navigating the meth-lab haze of Scopofoboexoskelett’s infinite corridors and nonexistent doorways, listeners may wonder why the maximalist psychedelia of 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker) rarely slips into familiar kvlt dialects. The multinational trio’s identification with the label of black metal (BM) is a tricky but crucial one, after all, and those acquainted with the underground darlings’ prior work will appreciate their fast-and-loose attitude toward an often insular subgenre community. The BM offered here does not trade in tremolo riffs or blast beats, but a demonic and hallucinatory evil that haunts every aspect of this album like a spiteful poltergeist. Even the vocals are corrupted. Rather than larynx-tearing shrieks, there is simply a veiled, whispering voice in your ear—whose very inscrutability bears the most immediate threat.
Every track is a microcosm of glimmering darkness, an ecosystem teeming with sonic hell. The potpourri of unorthodox instrumentation is certainly en vogue as far as experimental metal is concerned, but the lap steel at the centre of “Silesian Fur Coat” (to give just one example) isn’t relegated to postmodern genre salad, with dizzying glissandi far more evocative of monstrous psychonauts Neptunian Maximalism than of Secret Chiefs 3. In the same vein, the band’s penchant for distorting the familiar á la Ephel Duath rears its head in the uncanny valley of sweep-picked shredding made twisted and parodic on "Mirrors Turned Inward". As the track title suggests, this album disorients and confuses like a house of mirrors, overwhelming the senses as fixed points of reference stretch and squeeze into grotesque effigies. Emerging from the kaleidoscopic hurricane of "The Bad Luck That Saved You From Worse Luck" with your mind intact is a feat of its own. Or perhaps that's a bit presumptuous—I wouldn't be surprised if 夢遊病者's beguiling intoxicants elude human comprehension for a long time to come.