Kryatjurr of Desert Ahd - Underestimate Climate Systems and Suffer Incomprehensible Losses (Vigor Deconstruct)
Nature-obsessed black metal (BM) bands are a dime a dozen—kvltists have been shrieking their praises of the wild forest and the windswept moor almost as long as they’ve been donning corpse paint. Similarly prevalent are those groups that dwell on the futility (and horror) of human existence, whether in the face of Satan, Lovecraft’s Outer Gods, or the empty abyss that sits within us all. These two camps are such natural bedfellows that having one foot in either shouldn’t turn any heads on its own. Thankfully, Kryatjurr of Desert Ahd prove their worth by imposing the exigent terrors of ecocide onto these well-trodden themes, proclaiming our oncoming doom in a trilogy of raw, smothering, and terrifying black metal (BM) releases culminating here in their newest full-length, Underestimate Climate Systems and Suffer Incomprehensible Losses.
Never ones to beat around the bush, track titles like “Torrential Downpours of Hurricana” or “Insufficient Shelters Creak and Moan” give listeners ample warning before they’re swept away by Kryatjurr’s overwhelming floods. Structurally, the band take a page from the BM-as-drone playbook, though there’s far more tumult and turmoil than you’d find in Plague Organ. The music’s relentlessness evokes the unstoppable force of hurricanes and typhoons or the tireless approach of our species’ collective death, rather than inducing any state of trance or transcendence. This isn’t to say Underestimate Climate Systems ever becomes tedious in its repetition, because when it’s needed, the storm will shift you into its eye, accumulated energy spinning outward into an atmoblack breakdown or a shuddering groove. Through the whole affair, vocalist Kluurja of No Ending wails hopelessly, leaking a despondent nihilism that recalls the anodyne dirges of Xasthur and the broader depressive BM tradition.
The lower-than-lo-fi, washed-out production ties everything together in a neat bow, not only magnifying the compositions’ oppressive intensity but really submerging listeners in a drowned world reminiscent of that on Velvet Cacoon’s opiated opus, P aa opal Poere Pr. 33. This dismal, dampened future does flash some hi-def imagery, thanks to Markov Soroka’s deft touch as mix/master engineer—not to mention his familiarity with wet, underwater metal. Listen for the cavernous drips and bubbles on “Floods Carry our Coffins Towards Sunken Ships”and the subtle intrusion of John Carpenter-esque synths floating amongst the sound of pouring rain on “Sirensong”. At the same time, though, don’t miss the forest for the trees. Underestimate Climate Systems does the difficult work of fusing raw and atmospheric BM elements, while also bringing enough thematic weight to turn extremity into eschatology. That’s where Kryatjurr’s terrifying magic reveals itself—in the cumulative and killer sound of mass extinction.