ALUK TODOLO — Voix (review)

Album · 2016 · Metal Related

4/5 · 2017-01-17
siLLy puPPy

After four long years the mysterious ALUK TODOLO finally releases a followup to their attention getting breakthrough (well in the underground freakazoid’s world anyway) album “Occult Rock.” While the first three releases were primarily based in the bizarre world of noise and Krautrock with dark ambient and psychedelic accoutrements, the band added black metal elements on their fourth album and continues those same characteristics on their fifth album VOIX which is French for “voice” however there are no vocals on this as are there on any (unless some weird spoken gibberish counts) ALUK TODOLO album. This music lies outside the confines of language and takes the listener to some far corners of some remote corner of the sonosphere, so dark and daunting that no one has ever dared explore.

On paper VOIX sounds much like what was established on “Occult Rock,” namely black metal type tremolo picking with distortion galore with a frenetic and repetitive bass and drum to infinity while the guitar has little freak out dances around the main groove. Despite that similarity something sounds a bit different on this one. Whereas on “Occult Rock” it seemed like there was no sense of melodic development and in reality a very sophisticated take on the no wave sound that emerged in the early 80s by acts such as Swans, VOIX seems to have melodic developments albeit minor compared to the energetic performances that accompany each and every note that is played. In fact i think there is a slight surf rock type of thing going on at times but it is so obfuscated and drenched in hypnotic and chaotic time signatures that it is very hard to distinguish. But the fact that there is a variation in actual notes means that this album isn’t nearly as meditative and mesmerizing as previous offerings even though it is!

Another aspect that makes this different from previous albums is the fact that the drums have gained some independence. While in previous offerings it was customary for percussion to be tied to the activities of the bass guitar, here it breaks free from its constraints and acts more like a jazz drummer would do and creates complex drum rolls that create a rhythmic backbone of the droning lysergic dissonant guitar distortions that venture into pure atmospheric space that can result in extended humming sprees. All tracks bleed into each other and this is really one long sonic journey through the noise filled halls of the jittery and distortion fueled head trips of ALUK TODOLO’s wildest dreams. This type of music is in effect a psychedelic black metal free form extravaganza in a universe where no song structures exist and snippets of melody come and go as they please offering not a scant trace of rhyme or reason or any predictability whatsoever.

These sounds are solely for those who love noise, chaos and cold, dark places. This “music” may contain more elements of melody that the listener can latch onto in order to have some point of reference but they are equivalent to the bio-lantern of a deep sea angler in the crushing pressures of the deepest recesses of the Mariana Trench. This is bizarre music that is equally evocative as an active listener as a passive one. Much like the mathematics of a fractal, you can zoom into the details of your temporal comfort zone or not. This is music that is equally bizarre if you fully focus upon every detail or simply sit back and shop for new shoes on your favorite internet site. There seems to be a slight step up in the evolution of ALUK TODOLO and even though it took four years, it is excellent to hear their distorted reality coming into a new phase as it gradually and reluctantly takes on more melodic aspects of music and twist and distort them into their own bizarre concoctions.