Music review: diSEMBOWELMENT - Transcendence into the Peripheral (1993)

I don't expect a lot of people to be able to enjoy this, but this the review of my favourite albums, so whatever. Main reason being the sheer extremity of the music, both the cavernous, inhuman vocals and the extremely oppressive music.

While diSEMBOWELMENT is often considered as part of the initial death/doom wave of the early 90s, I think the strong funeral doom component and Lovecraftian eeriness paint them a slightly different colour than the Peaceville trio (Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema) or Katatonia.

Actually, if I were to guess its direct inspirations, I'd say Sempiternal Deathreign's sole and obscure release The Spooky Gloom together with Thergothon's and maybe Demigod's demos. But the final result is much more than the sum of those, especially the slow, psychedelic parts.

And let met say that while I think that those are the clear highlights, the frenetic "fillers" are just al dente, as far as timing and duration go. But thinking about individual parts isn't the right way to review such an album: really, it's the ubiquitous atmosphere that propels it to the rank of masterpiece. Just read the RYM descriptor list, I don't want to parrot it.

Like the recently reviewed Goatlord, I think it's fair to call this Australian work "more Finnish than the Finns". That's how eerie and entrancing I find it. And perfect, I wouldn't change a single thing and that's not something any hour-long LP with three tracks clocking over 10 minutes can claim!