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