Global Domination | Reviews | Discordance Axis: The inalienable dreamless

Recent updates

Recent discussions

Reviews

Discordance Axis: The inalienable dreamless

07/04/11 || Khlysty

It’s after two-thirty in the morning, I’m drinking Tullamore Dew Irish Whisky and pondering on the thought that if grindcore has its own Brandenburg concertos, “The Inalienable Dreamless” must surely be it. It’s not the greatest grind record ever, but it’s perfect and it perfectly encapsulates everything that’s important and exciting about said genre, while still pushing the envelope of aggression and creativity, almost to breaking point.

If there’s one word to describe this record, this is “fuckingscary”. I’ve exposed myself to quite a lot of grind and I can easily tell that this beast is not one to fuck around with, lest it totally consumes you. What’s fuckingscary about “The Inalienable Dreamless” is first and foremost the iron discipline the band displays: there’s nary a note that’s useless or superfluous here, and we’re talking about a gabajillion of notes. The compositional density of the songs is immense and one has to sit down and carefully listen and re-listen to them, so as to ingest and fully digest them.

What’s also fuckingscary about the record is the prowess that the members of Discordance Axis display. Rob Marton’s guitar playing is monstrous: from classic Earache-style open slashes, to detailed shredding, to almost-death metal barely-tonal riffing, he covers so much ground within the almost thirty minutes of the record that’s mind-boggling. Behind the battery, we find monsieur Dave Witte, one of the most accurate, creative, easy-flowing and powerful drummers of the whole fucking universe. His playing here reaches transcendental proportions, as he easily blasts, rolls and generally beats the shit out of the competition, giving you the impression that he finished the recording without even breaking a sweat and that there are times that he actually holds himself back.

As for singer – lyricist Jon Chang, he screams and alternately growls his way through the record with a ferocity that transcends mere vocalization. His screams are completely incomprehensible, but they evoke an almost existential dread with the intensity they’re delivered. As for the lyrics, here’s a bit of what he writes: “I have/Never/Felt/I fell/Into/Arms/That hold me/I pass through you/Like a ghost”. Goose-bumpy stuff and totally out of- and surprisingly into- place with the music. And, of course, after all this stuff, there’s the experimentation, the four-minute trudge-through-atonal-hell of “A Leaden Stride To Nowhere”, which is the most fuckingscary song in a totally fuckingscary record, made by fuckingscary talented people.

Grind can be boring: song-squirts, played with abnormal speed, can easily blur into amorphous-ness. Not so here, though: every song has its own character, its own distinct personality, its own approach of being played by the band members. To me this is the epitome of greatness in grindcore: other records are much more effective or much more brutal. But “The Inalienable Dreamless” is a whole small grind universe, that demands dedication and open-mindedness to be explored and fully comprehended. It’s a dare, but the fruits it holds hidden are exquisitely important.

9,5

Information
Released: 2001
Label: Hydra Head Records
Website: www.studio-grey.com/da
Band
Jon Chang: vocals, lyrics
Rob Marton: guitar
Dave Witte: drums

Tracklist
01. Castration Rite
02. The Inalienable Dreamless
03. Sound Out the Braille
04. Oratorio in Grey
05. Vacuum Sleeve
06. Angel Present
07. The Necropolitan
08. Pattern Blue
09. The End of Rebirth
10. Loveless
11. Radiant Arkham
12. Use of Weapons
13. Compiling Autumn
14. Jigsaw
15. The Third Children
16. A Leaden Stride to Nowhere
17. Drowned

Reviews