Just when you think you’ve heard everything music has to offer a band comes along to blow all your preconceived ideas to smithereens, and such a band has arrived in the shape of AABODE. Taking the basic template of death metal and beating it into previously unheard forms, this pair of musicians from Nancy, France, serve up a mind-blowing debut in Neo-Age. Featuring seven songs that fuse disconcerting electronica to equally discombobulating death metal, this is an album that drags heavy metal, kicking and screaming, towards a bright new future.
Sounding like the result of a bad acid tab or a mescaline-induced nightmare, opening track ‘Coral’ explodes with some force and sends shards of psychedelic colours shooting in every direction. The humongous riff which rolls from speaker to speaker and shatters your skull is undoubtedly metal, yet the spiky electronica that is interwoven places the song in a whole new frame. It gives AABODE a definite crossover appeal and will appeal to fans of each genre in equal measure. As an old school metalhead I can remember an age when electronics were viewed as something decidedly uncool and spawn of the devil, yet AABODE prove that totally false and the keys and samples added to tracks such as ‘Perpetual’ only add to their heaviness; they attach themselves to the listener like an anchor to a dying man and drags you down to delirious, uncharted depths.
‘De-Vore’ is the kind of song that offers a glitch in the matrix; it peels back the thin veil that separates this world from the next and gives a frightening glimpse of what lies beyond. There’s a definite science fiction influence to the AABODE experience, yet it is the darker side of the genre, a dystopian view of the future and one that, thanks to Neo-Age, is given a pummelling soundtrack. It’s a nightmare in deep space, and one where nobody can hear you scream. As such, Neo-Age isn’t the kind of album you put on as background music, rather it is a thing that you engage with and the startling sonic shifts that pepper tracks such as ‘2047 YOD’ constantly reposition you, forcing to to reevaluate what you are hearing and subsequently it demands your full attention.
It’s always nice to hear an artists taking a fresh approach to music and it is even more satisfying when that approach works. In a case of fortune favouring the brave, AABODE hint at what metal will sound like in an age yet to come. Dig the new breed!
- Neo-Age is released via Godz Ov War Productions and is available now (from here).
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Track List:
- Coral
- Perpetual
- Ayre
- De-Vore
- Neo-Age
- 2047 YOD
- Rem(a)inder
