Dodecahedron
Kwintessens
(Season of Mist)
Imagine an European art-house version of torture porn, a film so grotesque in its furtherance of violence yet purposeful in its cinematography. The film is stunning for how beautifully it portrays the most disgusting portions of the human condition, yet its splendid splatter provokes a physical reaction; it’s not easy to enjoy the film, but you can appreciate how wonderfully and carefully it was made. Kwintessens is that hypothetical in musical form, a record so meticulously calibrated, one that elicits a churning in my gut with every gleefully dissonant note, that I end up loving it. Oh, it’s ugly. Dodecahedron’s debut self-titled album set the bar high for these Dutch lovers of Deathspell Omega-styled dissonant black/death metal.
However, while Dodecahdron was all insanity and swirling evil, it’s clear that the band have carefully honed their craft in the five years between records. Kwintessens is a much more expansive listen, with honest to Satan riffs and moments of (holy shit, very relative) calm that help contextualize the musical madness that Dodecahedron are capable of orchestrating. “Octahedron: Harbinger” and “Dodecahedron: An Ill-Defined Air of Otherness” feature new wrinkles to the band’s sound; the former sprinkles on menacing post-metal, while the latter stretches the band’s sounds to wonderful new heights. Featuring a synth melody and a bit of blackgaze, the song spirals out of control in its latter third, to great effect. Kwintessens works because its artfully plotted; it’s not an all-out assault on the senses; there’s at least some meaning behind the mayhem.
That said, when they want to bring the stomach-churning heat, Dodecahedron bring it. “Hexahedron: Tilling the Human Soil” is the closest thing the band has ever done to a “traditional” song, despite the purposefully hideous dissonance in that main, repeating riff. I dare say it’s a catchy tune, as far as progressive technical black/death can get. However, it highlights how the band have gone ever so slightly away from pushing to the extremes of extreme metal into something more evocative and, dare I say, beautiful. Oh, to be sure, Kwintessens is a delightfully horrifying listen, but it’s so expertly designed and carefully crafted that it’s difficult not to appreciate Dodecahedron firing from all angles (pun intended). Aside from a post “Finale” track that feels somewhat underwhelming as an ending, Dodecahedron’s sophomore record cements them as one of the torch-bearers of modern extreme progressive metal. The number of bands doing the Ulcerate/Deathspell Omega thing has exploded in recent years, but Kwintessens may go down as the quintessential dissonant disc.
