SUTEKH HEXEN - Become Ep

Hailing from San Francisco, Sutekh Hexen craft an ambient, industrial strain of metal with a hyper-catastrophic sound, already well in evidence from early efforts like "Alters" and "Ritualistic", "Constellation", "Ordo Adversarial" and the first singles, and gradually explored further on their debut "Luciform", a mosaic whose real value lies in its varied use of technique, and on the first long-form pieces of "Larvae", on which they progress into painters of sub-human frescoes caught in the midst of apocalyptic explosion. Likewise, "Behind the Throne" continues the path toward a dramaturgical expansion of all the elements used so far: unintelligible demonic screams torn apart by feral electronics, scattered sonic signs, walls of distortion.

The new "Become" offers up two new long tracks in that same style, and the quest is more exasperated than ever. On this EP there's no longer just dramaturgical expansion but extrasensory expansion too. The first track, "Five Faces Of Decay", is an ultrasonic blend of distortion, a sharp Suicide-like rhythm, a hurricane-like growl, random overlapping layers in the style of Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music". Six minutes into the track, steely echoes and reverbs are added, deathly wails, electronic trails: through sheer accumulation it becomes an unbearable crescendo, which eventually turns into an abstract turbine. On this track Sutekh Hexen move from the irrational terror of "Behind The Throne" to pure sonic digression.

"The Voice: The Void" kicks off like a delirious gothic ritual, with the guitar marking out the ceremony and the voice reduced to a pure, voiceless growth in a damned solo. The industrial stasis that follows - still laden with miasmas and distant reverbs - is only a pause that unleashes a wall of abrasions and vocal retching, until it erupts into a chaos of white noise for several minutes. No less harrowing than "Five Faces of Decay", but its structure is more clear-cut, making it slightly more demonstrative.

The band's masterpiece (now reduced to a duo: Kenin Yuen and AC Way) lies in its uncontrolled alternation between a dramaturgy that dismantles easy symbolism, literally pulverizing it, and a detached, cynical form of creation, all dark and freezing ultraviolence. More than an album, it's a trajectory aiming to bridge metal with contemporary avant-garde composers. Already released on a highly limited cassette run in 2012 (Auris Apothecary), remastered by James Plotkin.

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28/10/2013