This is record for the sick. If your preferences concerning extreme Metal begin with Wolves In The Throne Room and end with Liturgy, Mitochondrion from Canada is not a band for you. But if you dig skull crushing mayhem like Deathspell Omega on the one hand and primitive, ugly bastards like Teitanblood on the other, you should give Mitochondrion a shot. This is some seriously gut wrenching, blackened Death Metal, picking up where all the fakes left off.
First thing completely opposed to your standard Black Metal band: the vocals are super deep and growling, total Death Metal style. Yet they maintain a quite chaotic element. Musicwise things are different as well. There’s basically no moment on this record where both guitars play the same riff. One is always messing around with super deep chords, while the other one is playing totally chaotic, sick shit. These “melodies” make a huge portion of the Black Metal feeling on this record. The drummer, Karl Godard, delivers breath taking stop and go parts and blast-beats en masse and manages to keep this the semi-chaotic metal of death tight.
The aforementioned references – Deathspell Omega and Teitanblood – describe pretty much the span Mitochondrion act in. Maybe you could add some harsh, blackened Death Metal to the mix, I’m thinking of Greek bastards Dead Congregation for example. I’m pretty stoked on this sick and fucked up shit – total gut puking, chainsaw fucking Death Metal crossing the line towards Black Metal. Definetely a winner.
Ruben Olivares
August 22, 2011 at 11:23 am
Anyone who uses the phrase “chainsaw fucking” in a positive sense (or at all really) needs to stay away from music like this and really just needs to reevaluate.
Tetravirulence
August 22, 2011 at 3:22 am
First of all its good that finally some1 picked up Mitochondrion for a review! An indepth analysis could be much better though its tough to describe their music