Now this is a weird one. I don’t know what to call these guys. Experimental death metal with industrial influences? Hooked already? Good. These guys are pretty underground from what I gather. They’re from The Netherlands (so metal), and they make weird music. Trivmvirate is their third album – released in 2008 – and I still don’t know what the hell is going on in it. It blows my mind every time I listen to it, and I’m still not sure if I’ve uncovered everything that’s going on in here. It’s heavy, it’s weird, and it’s…catchy? Let’s take a look at it. Be warned though, this album is pretty much designed to piss off the death metal elitists and confuse the dilettantes to oblivion, so make sure you have your wits about you when you delve in.

“Deus Ex Machina” opens with an electronic groove, which should immediately put a frown on any elitist’s face. The electronica is joined by Latin chanting, and the guitars come in with the drums, setting the mood to “calm before the storm”, and after the teasing is over, we get some good fast death metal riffing with brutal vocals. The production is very timid, which might be a turnoff for most, but it works within their sound, and you realize that as the electronic elements come over the death metal riffing. A heavy and muddy death metal tone wouldn’t have allowed for different sounds. Soon afterwards, the chants come back, and you get a weird mix of death metal, electronica and chants. Then you get… brutal vocals played through vocoder and church organs. Yes, weird. But it is weirdly brilliant, because it all works. It’s not tacky like your generic scenecore band that decides to add on autotune and dubstep; this really works.

The lyrics are about some mythological deity, scowling at his believers. So the chants work with the theme of the song, and so do the organs. By the way, the time signatures and meters in the playing are quite odd too. This isn’t something you can get in one sitting, you have to pay attention and keep coming back. Halfway through, the song breaks down into electronica and chants again, and afterwards we get a super slow oldschool death metal riff, again with vocodered brutal vocals. Gothic organs too. I honestly am amazed by how <i>good</i> this song is, in spite of all the completely batshit crazy unrelated things that are going on. 3/4 of the way through, there’s lead playing reminiscent of Slayer (completely atonal). I know, if you’re a typical death metal person you’re probably bubbling in rage right now, and if you don’t like weird music like this you probably think I’m crazy. If you’re still here, well, it’s just the beginning.

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