Exclusive Stream: Chaotorynth’s Axiomatic Limitation
I first wrote about Ireland’s Chaotorynth shortly after the release of the project’s debut, Eidola Hunter. Now, just a year later, the one-man band returns with Axiomatic Limitation, 42 minutes of punishing blackened death metal. Check out our exclusive stream below.Axiomatic Limitation is an ugly album, and it embraces that fact fully. The frenetic pace kept up throughout the album adds to its dense atmosphere, one that refuses to let up even for a second. After the introductory track “Resign,” no quarter is to be found for the next 42 minutes. Axiomatic Limitation has no need for clean breaks or catchy vocal melodies or any other musical device that could offer its audience even a moment of solace.
Tracks like “Pedigree” and “Shelter” envelop their clanging blast beats with thick clouds of dissonance, expanding and contracting chords and guitar harmonies like sunlight refracting through dark clouds. Chaotorynth may not play technical death metal in any traditional sense, but to downplay the incredible instrumental skill on display throughout the album would be a travesty. Lone member Dudley Grant’s ability to teeter just on the brink of falling apart while never capsizing is reminiscent of Pyrrhon by way of Akercocke, but the control he displays is all his own.
Riffs and leads burst out as if from the ether, ignoring ideas of cohesion and focusing instead on trying to uproot the rest of the band at every turn, as seen on “Value,” where dense chords and ringing harmonics echo across incessant blast beats and rolls. Cyclical, winding riffs poke out their heads every now and then before diving back underground to build on each other in walls of noise, nearly becoming lost in their own gusts of static. The vitriol displayed is beyond potent, but the momentum it builds is not for naught: the 11-minute closer “Chaotorynth [I]” that follows manages to both summarize the strengths of the tracks it succeeds while standing taller than any of them.
Axiomatic Limitation’s greatest strength is its complete disregard for convention. Grant has created a wholly insular musical world in which the visions of others are reflected and distorted beyond recognition. Identifying a single riff or cogent idea amongst the madness is practically impossible and yet the itch to dig deeper cannot be ignored. Listening to Axiomatic Limitation is like swallowing a tennis ball covered in wasps, and yet I keep coming back and finding new aspects to praise with each listen.
