Friday, October 28, 2011

DRIPPING - DISINTEGRATION OF THOUGHT PATTERNS DURING A SYNTHETIC MIND TRAVELING BLISS (2002)

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Easy on the album title there, fellas.

I had often heard the name DRIPPING bandied about in reference to other riff-salad technical-slam-death oddities like Wormed or Origin, but never really got around to checking them out until our new word-buddy Judge Shredd dropped the name in a "weird DM" exchange just recently. Long story short, I can't believe I fucking slept on this band for so long--they are sort of like an amalgamation of everything I enjoy about extreme metal, with plenty of psychedelic weirdness and inexplicable experimentation thrown in just to frost the cake.

For the uninitiated, I will draw a few comparisons to help me explain: 1) There is a definite similarity to the aforementioned Wormed, in that both bands dwell in the off-kilter subgenre of "technical space slam". But Dripping are much more organic, and their far-less-than-perfect production cranks them up a couple notches for me personally. 2) The production of this album is indeed a huge selling point. This is no ultra-triggered, studio-perfect tech-death album--its crushing girth calls to mind sloppy classics like Embalmer or a slightly more tidy Abnegation. I wish more modern death metal bands would take a cue from Dripping and record albums that sound like actual bands playing actual songs with each other. 3) Dripping have a charming tendency to veer completely off track in the middle of a song, careening into weird robot noises, or horn sections, or ambient swooshing, or little spoken parts... In this regard I would liken them to more schizophrenic acts like Faxed Head or even super-early Candiria--although neither of those bands could shred with anywhere near the proficiency that these guys do. 4) I also get a pretty major Creation Is Crucifixion vibe from this band, as well as Blasphemy Made Flesh-era Cryptopsy. I think it's something about the guitar tone (former) and frenzied, lightspeed blastbeats (latter).

If all of these comparisons seem completely unconnected to you, well, then, you have a valid point. But Dripping pull it off with aplomb, creating one of the most re-listenable sonic journeys ICHQ has heard in quite some time. Add the fact that they hail from New Jersey and used to go by the near-perfect slam moniker "Cadaverment"--well, Dripping are nigh unto the "perfect storm". As is always the case with forgotten nuggets of this high caliber, Disintegration Of Thought Patterns During A Synthetic Mind Traveling Bliss was the only proper full-length from this insane fucking band--which means you should probably set down the meatball sub, Fatso, and hustle your mouse over to that "Download HERE" link without further ado.

Download HERE

Metallum/Last.FM

5 comments:

DoomUnicorn said...

This has made me readjust my worldview. The opening grunt at 1:07 or so is about all you need to know.

DoomUnicorn said...

And someone definitely remembered to press bass boost. It sounds like it was engineered by Ruff Rydaz.

Judge Shredd said...

One of my favorite logos of all time, especially the older one.

FYI, on the EP they have a song called "Diary of an Ancient Astronaut"

Anonymous said...

A true classic. I think these guys are like the next level of wigger slam.

Shelby Cobras said...

It's like wigger slam with a brain. Total anomaly.