Written by Carcassbomb
- Sleepscultper
- Untimening EP / Entry: Dispersal Vinyl
- Mathcore/Hardcore
- Pennsylvania, America
- Silent Pendulum Records
- July 3, 2020
- 9/10
The first time I heard this I was like
The whole damn time.
So then I took a second listen today just to make sure what I heard is what I heard, and fair enough the very opening seconds shot right down the back of my neck and down the spine. This appears to be a vinyl re-release combining their EP and debut LP, put out by Silent Pendulum Records on Bandcamp as Name Your Own Price. I seriously recommend the labels discography for the 10 bucks just to have them in collection and support the label. It’s run by the current drummer of The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Michael Kadnar, and they put out vinyl reissues of The Number Twelve and many amazing new releases from upcoming bands. You can hear all about it in my interview with him and DJ Scully here.
Where even to start? In the last two years I’ve heard and appreciated an insane amount of brand new metallic hardcore, skramz, mathcore, post hardcore and you know my ass loves Russian post-black/metalcore hybrids like Toluca and L’homme Absurde. I started to feel like I had reached the peak of the genre and perhaps there wasn’t a lot of room to impress me. What we’re dealing with when it comes to Sleepcultper is the abandonment of genre expectations in favor of being super heavy and impactful. I’m hearing bits and pieces black metal, hardcore, post-hardcore, punk, noise, metalcore and deathcore all distilled through this chaotic mathcore. There’s no cohesive standard across the album other than being up your fucking ass with quarantined-room-moshing bombardments – and that’s taking into consideration isolating the LP part of the release.
Clearly these are musicians who love and understand all of the genres and what links them. It moves so quickly that there’s never really one element that persists long enough to be overdone, as can be the case with many other releases that stick to one or two sound concepts like dissonance, panic chords, djentiness or jazz. Nothing on this album feels like a gimmick or a crutch, it sounds like a well designed weapon constructed out of a million other destroyed weapons. No regard for even the user’s safety and no discrimination seeking a target.
This varied feeling is helped significantly by a few well placed guest vocalists, something I always enjoy in hardcore because the multiple voices, and the vocal layering brings so much texture to the sound. The one most of us will be familiar with right now is on the track ‘Relinquished’ which features vocals from Carson of The Callous Daoboys. Was also pleasantly surprised to find Sean from Arsonists Get All The Girls on ‘Liber Null’. I’m not familiar with Cody Canning or Depreciator from the track ‘Failsafe’ but you can bet I will be very soon. This collaborative approach elevates the material a lot, I always appreciate that extra mile. They have the feel of a mathcore supergroup.
Fantastic ending of the album too – which can be difficult for an album with this energy – many releases just tucker you out by the 20 minute mark even if it is technically great. The second last track, ‘Post Traumatic’ is where most albums would end, with a nice electronic/beat sort of outro but then we’re hit with a reprise of the entire album in the span of two minutes with ‘A Deity Conceived In A Petri Dish’ – I don’t think I’ve ever moved so damn hard to the final track of an album.
9/10
Wow…. The last time I had this reaction in my my mind and body is when I first heard Knocked Loose and that was a whole big while ago….. It is a spectacular outburst of color and stuff…..Thank you Sleepsculptor….