Review: Snorlax – Toxic Current
Blackened Deathgrind, I choose you!
It’s not every day you come across an extreme metal band named after a Pokémon, of all things. But that’s beside the point; this solo project by Australian multi-instrumentalist Brendan Auld is one I was familiar with but lost track of after a while. I remember liking the Snorlax debut album well enough, wherein Auld played blackened death metal which was equal parts dissonant and cavernous—very in line with the Icelandic black metal sound—and cavernous death metal waves that were in full effect during the late 2010s. Seeing that the man has kept himself busy and is now releasing a new record, I couldn’t pass the chance to rediscover this project, and I was genuinely surprised.
While a lot of the cavernous and dissonant elements of that first album are still here, this new album, Toxic Current, sees Auld take his sound and inject it with deathgrind. The songs are very short, the production is not as reverb-heavy and there’s a much stronger emphasis on riffing and breakdowns, but it all works really well. Furthermore, despite pivoting into grind, Auld still finds ways to incorporate eerie atmospherics without the project veering back into pure black metal. This is an impressive feat because all the songs are a race to the finish, but they don’t feel short; there’s so much going on between the drumming, solos, basslines and Auld’s growling gutturals which are drenched in reverb, that it feels like an abuse of the senses in the best way possible, while still having that atmospheric element.
Something I did notice that’s less of a criticism and more of an observation is the presence of two covers (“Puppet Fuck” by Agents of Abhorrence and “Pigs” by The Fevered); both are Australian punk-adjacent bands, with the former being grindcore and the latter being hardcore-infused death metal. On their own, the covers are fine; Auld does a good job at making them fit within the album, but they feel the most different from the rest of the songs, which in turn makes them stand out in a way that’s weird. I don’t want to say they’re filler, but they kind of feel like Auld didn’t want his album to be 10 songs and just over 25 minutes.
My one criticism is how the best parts are when Auld branches out of the deathgrind mold, not just the atmospherics, but also the way his riffs find that perfect sweet spot between brutal aggression and sinister darkness. The man knows how to perfectly blend black and death metal, and succeeded at also incorporating grind, but the album falters a bit for my liking when it sticks to deathgrind. It’s not bad, but it feels a bit formulaic, and the two covers also contribute to this admittedly very minor issue. This is a good album that’s also very forward-thinking and unorthodox, but it also feels a bit transitional for Auld, as in, whatever Auld does next will be where he perfects this new style of blackened deathgrind. As a whole this is still a lean, mean and intensely brutal album that covers a lot of bases and does it well—any fan of death metal or punk will definitely get a kick [or Mega Punch ~Roldy] out of Toxic Current.
3.5/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Toxic Current releases July 10 through Avantgarde Music.
