Rating: 8.3

Country: Spain

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Scythecut Records

Track list:
1. Routine Demythified The Wonder
2. At The Edge Of The World
3. A Plea For Time
4. Andreia
5. Alecto - Megaera - Tisiphone
6. Metalogos (The Construction Of Destruction)
7. Hemisphere 207
8. Wings Of Disembodiment

Total playing time 57:52

Band Website: Undefined

Undefined - Of Xenoglossy and Saturn

Gherion: Vocals
D. Allen-Perkins: Guitar
F. Allen-Perkins: Guitar
J. González-Arintero: Bass
D. Garijo: Drums

When I retrieved a parcel from Spain from my mailbox, I glanced at the ‘from' address and saw “Undefined” scribbled there. Its contents felt like a normal CD and not poop of some sort, so I began wondering why anyone would be foolhardy enough to send an anonymous parcel to India and yet strangely have a full return address written below it. It was later in my metal lair strewn with babe corpses that I found out that Undefined happens to be their band name. Heh, okay, and this queer band sporting a black metal logo and artwork happens to play a very unconventional form of blackened death metal mingled with a host of other influences.

Immediately your mental faculties will be diverted from hopeless porno fantasising to trying to identify and associate their unique sound. While inexperienced lumps of flesh will be torn just debating upon the band's genre, their music as I have ascertained is chiefly death metal, and their ‘sound' I would liken to that of Unanimated or for a more cognisable albeit vaguer idea, to early Necrophobic. So basically you have this pre-Gothenburg sort of death metal sound that has been mutated with black metal influences in the form of early Arcturus and latter Emperor material, with their songs ruthlessly drawn out to the length of an average Opeth track while also infusing a sizeable chuck of their progressive style (as per the copyright agreement), and then finally and almost invariably in today's times especially when it involves genre cross-dressing, the perking up of their music with semi-epic martial Behemoth influences. To complicate matters at least for me, Of Xenoglossy and Saturn has an impeccable production that distils all the irregular influences into one streamlined sound that could be identifiable as only the band's own, for now.

If you are still with me, you should know that a great deal happens in their songs. But they are never cramped with ill-fitting parts just for the sake of being interesting or technical in an obnoxiously experimental way. Seamlessly fused within their narrative songs, every part has a purpose and its own story to tell, so to speak. It takes you through various moods and shades but the band's own sound remains unaffected. While deftly alternating between and within intricate styles of death and black metal riffing, the band is able to effortlessly detangle itself and break into a mellow part, and just as easily it is able to lift its mood and subsequently punish their listeners with heavy riffing or conjure up exquisite leads that linger long enough to completely exhaust you emotionally. The pace of the music is regulated according to the emotional level of that part, for instance for a depressive black metal segment a reluctant dragging pace is adopted, but during the marching Behemoth parts it is convincingly upbeat, and for the technical parts it is remarkably agile. Vocals too are employed judiciously for the differing parts; ranging from sharp throaty growls to wispy rasps to even occasional clean singing, they are thankfully always unostentatious, just what the flamboyant music needed.

It is staggering to see a band this young (they have only an EP to their credit before this) exhibit such mature song writing skills and confidence to attempt and pull off something this ambitious. Released on their own label, the album has 20 pages of interesting lyrics and beautiful artwork which my promo copy doesn't give me the liberty to elaborate upon. The diversity in Undefined's music is vast and yet not outlandish, and their attempt to carve their own sound despite it is indeed very commendable; it thus is a well-deserved compliment when I say that the music on Of Xenoglossy and Saturn sounds like an altogether different sub-genre of extreme metal. Probably the only thing preventing me from fully appreciating it is the band's predominant traversing of the commercial side of the genres it so expertly covers.

May 21st, 2008