REMMIRATH - Shambhala Vril Saucers (Review 1 of ?)

Our shadowy cabal of scribes has happened upon one of the most wondrous and/or perplexing albums in existence. The following reviews, released over the course of several days, is our humble attempt to decipher that which lays before us. Prepare thyself. - Ed. 

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Written by: Izzy

Where do I even begin with this.

This album. This fuckin’ album.

It is a MONSTROSITY and an ABOMINATION and a cruel joke against nature, God, and all that is holy. 

​And I fucking LOVE it.

Listen, if you’ve never heard of these guys before, don’t feel bad, neither had I until a couple weeks ago. But listening to this album was a life changing experience.

You think Dillinger Escape Plan is strange? That’s cute. You think Psyopus is weird? That’s adorable. You think Genghis Tron is wildly outlandish? That’s gosh diddly darn PRECIOUS.

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Okay, I’m gonna try to hold off having a mental breakdown just from thinking about how I’m going to describe, let alone review this.

This album, at its most basic level, is a progressive black metal record. There’s immediately obvious fast tremolo picked style riffage, blast beats, low, screamed vocals, with maybe a splash of death metal in there as well, alongside a distinct lack of fucks given for any semblance of traditional song structure or genre restrictions.

But, on top of that, the next most noticeable influence is chiptune music. Yes, you heard that, chiptune and black metal. Sometimes it gets its own dedicated bridge section, or a sampled intro/interlude, or sometimes it gets layered on top of the regular instrumentation, but across the album it plays just as major of a role as the black metal aspects do.

Throughout this record, the guitarist does some insane stuff with his effects, most of them I don’t know enough about pedals or recording to even tell you what they are, however, one thing I do know is what a wah pedal is, and lord their guitarists loves using his wah in incredibly creative and strange ways. Often, you only hear it get used in such a way once or twice per song, but it’s always a highlight of the track when it happens.

The bassist here is also fantastic, this round but not rubbery bass constantly rumbling in the background, loud enough that when they want you to focus on it you can hear it loud and clear, but not too loud to where it becomes distracting when they want you to focus on the guitarist. It glues the song together when necessary, but can seamlessly grab your attention and switch to the focus of your ears at a moments notice.

Psychedelia also plays a major role in this albums sound, with many sections containing fuzzy guitar, slow tempos, and layered instrumentation that softly melts into one another just enough that everything feels like the part of one greater whole, but not enough that any one instrument gets buried in the others, as well as the making of this album HAD to have involved some kind--scratch that--MULTIPLE kinds of drugs.

While this album has so much pure chaos going on, the band does an excellent job of shifting your focus from one instrument to another whenever they choose. They’ll suddenly switch from black metal bursts to thrash/heavy metal style riffs, or maybe to clean guitar with some relaxing bass underneath, or the aforementioned chiptune, and then just as suddenly grab you by your extremities and drag you away to another place in sound. To another reality, another dimension, another plane of existence.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this album was not made by mere mortals, it was created by the Gods themselves, that’s the only logical answer. Whatever God or Gods fabricated this album did it either as some cruel joke, or as the pathway to celestial enlightenment. You’re either meant to discover the gateway to transcendence from this filthy mortal realm to a higher plane of existence, or to waste your entire life attempting to find it when there is none. Could mortal men have created such an obscene mockery of life itself? A gruesome menagerie of genres such as this that meld together into a gorgeous, pulchritudinous masterpiece of soundwaves that makes a fool of all other sonic compositions I dare not even describe as music, for to compare them would be a hideous odium upon this album?

Is there meaning behind this? Could something so horrific, yet elegant and refined be birthed by anything other than the twisted, gruesome mind of mankind? Is thinking about these existential concepts merely a ploy by some extradimensional being to make me waste precious hours of my feeble, worthless existence? What is the purpose of all this, are we simply pawns? Vermin? Insects? Lower lifeforms meant to be crushed underneath the boot of some metaphysical deity and this album is our only clue to uncovering our grisly fate?
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I have come to a new conclusion.
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Remmirath either are God, or could kill God, and I do not care if there is a difference.
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All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath 
All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath 
All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath 
All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath 
All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath 
All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath 
All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath All hail Remmirath 
...

Remmirath - Shambhala Vril Saucers was released March 2015 from Todestrieb Records

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Remmirath can be found laying absolute waste to expectations at:
Bandcamp