John Frum — A Stirring In The Noos
Their sound is much closer to The Faceless than DEP, a form of tastefully melodic death metal. However, where The Faceless includes bright melodic sweeps and classical flourishes with sharp, digitally enhanced production, John Frum's aesthetic is muddy, downtuned and organic. The live feel of their album has an analog authenticity, and it is light on overdubs and effects. The drums do not sound triggered. Their groove is an ominous, midtempo chug.
They offer some of the most clever and deep songwriting I have heard on a death metal album in years. It has the hypnotic feel of classic 90's music by Suffocation or Cryptopsy, in which many sections and riffs are hidden beneath a layer of superficial monotony. The true enjoyment of this album comes in replays; it is a grower of the highest order, with intelligence and confidence evident throughout the composition, performance and production.
Groove and song flow were considered first, or perhaps simply come naturally to these musicians, so initially it may not be clear exactly how much is going on. In actuality, there is a lot of dramatic depth and complexity to all of these songs. Songs like "Lacustrine Divination" have absolutely bizarre and trasncendent climactic sections with meandering, non-repetitive sequences of dissonant shapes.
The dark melodicism of the chords and progressions aligns itself with the modern dissonant/melancholic school established by Gorguts and continued by Ulcerate, Pyrrhon, Ulsect, etc. Unlike many of those bands' works, however, this album does not become fixated on deep sadness and depression, taking on a decidedly less sentimental affect as befitting death metal, in my opinion. The feeling of this album is closer to that of cynical, detached observation.
I occasionally enjoy The Faceless' hyperactive faux-existential sci-fi metal, finding it cheesy and overly flashy at times. I enjoyed DEP's early work, but find their newer albums awkward. As such, this album really came out of nowhere for me. It is one of the best death metal albums I have heard in years, without a doubt, eschewing excess and cheese in such a way as to be an infinitely repeatable experience.