Aural Aggravation

Transcending Obscurity Records – 10th November 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Somehow, despite James Watts having about a dozen musical projects on the go, with each touring in support of recent releases in addition to running a label, Newcastle quartet Plague Rider have come together once more to record a new album. It’s been out a few weeks already, but now, in addition to the myriad packages which include all the merch bundles you could possibly want and more besides, from mugs to denim jackets, it’s available on some pretty lurid-looking coloured vinyl. One might describe the retina-singeing flame-coloured hues of the disc as intense, which is fitting, given not only the album’s title, but its contents.

All of the various outfits featuring Watts are at the noisy end of the spectrum: the man has been blessed – or cursed – with vocal chords which have the capacity to evoke the darkest, dingiest, most hellish pits of hell, and the ability to transform the least likely of objects, like radiators and so on, into ‘musical’ instruments capable of conjuring the kind of noise that would bring forth demons.

Whereas Lump Hammer are devotees of relentless, repetitive riffs, and Friend are heavy buy dynamic, Plague Rider are… Plague Rider.

This isn’t just about Watts, though: guitarist Jake Bielby is of Dybbuk, and ex-Live, Lee Anderson (no, not that one) on bass is ex-Live Burial, and ex-Horrified), as is Matthew Henderson on drums. They make for one mighty unit, who, according to the accompanying notes, exist to weave together ‘vile, repulsive, and challenging death metal music whose original influences are now twisted and decomposed beyond recognition. Sure, you can find bits and pieces here and there, traces of hair, fingernails, broken teeth fragments, but overall their music is too far gone for any obvious comparisons. And that’s only remarkable because it adds an element of uniqueness and unpredictability in their music, a rare thrill to be derived from this style these days.’

There is so much going on all at once, it’s brain-blowing. It’s not technical metal, because it’s simply too raw, to ragged, and it’s not jazz, because, well, it’s just not – but they apply the principles of jazz to extreme metal, resulting in a mess of abrasion that’s… I don’t know what. I’m left foundering for marks and measures, for adjectives and comparisons and find myself grasping at emptiness. ‘Temporal Fixation’ explodes to start the album, and within the first three minutes it feels like having done six rounds in the ring. It’s as dizzying an eight minutes as you’ll experience. When I say it’s not technical, it’s still brimming with difficult picked segments and awkward signatures – but to unpick things, the technicality is more jazz-inspired than metal, the drums switching pace and fitting all over. The vocals are low in the mix, lurching from manic frenzy to guttural growling at the crack of a snare.

And at times, those snare shots land fast and furious, but not necessarily regularly. The rhythms on this album are wild and unpredictable – but then the same is true of everything, from the instrumentation to the structures. The mania and the frenzied fury perhaps call to mind Mr Bungle and Dillinger Escape Plan, but these are approximations, at least once removed, because this is everything all at once.

It’s as gnarly as fuck, and if ‘An Executive’ is all-out death metal, it’s also heavily laced with taints of math rock, noise rock, jazz metal and grindcore. It’s a raging tempest, an explosion of blastbeats and the wildest guitar mayhem that sounds like three songs all going off at once, and that’s before you even get to the vocals, which switch between raging raw-throated ravings and growls so low as to claw at the bowels. The sinewey guitars and percussive assault of ‘Modern Serf’ are very Godflesh, but in contrast, immediately after, ‘Toil’ is rough and ragged, and dragged from the raw template of early Bathory.

The lyrics may be impossible to decipher by ear, but thanks to a lyric sheet, it’s possible to excavate a world that’s broadly relatable to the experience of life as it is: ‘Psychically exhausted / Yet still plugged in and wired’ (‘Temporal Fixation’);

‘An Executive’ nails the way corporate speak has come to dominate everyday dialogue:

‘Chant the slogans

With conviction

Doesn’t matter

What we tell them

All that is solid melts into PR’

Fuck this this shit and capitalism’s societal takeover. As if it’s not enough to dominate the means and the money, the cunts in suits are taking over the language, too. But they’re not taking over Plague Rider. No-one is touching them as they lay convention to waste with this most brutal album. ‘The Refrain’ takes the screaming noise to the next level and brings optimum metal power for almost ten minutes before, the last track, the twelve-and-a-half minute ‘Without Organs’ is grim and utterly relentless.

With Intensities, Plague Rider deliver a set that lives up to the title. It’s utterly brutal, frantically furious, and devastatingly dingy. It’s almost impossible to keep up with the rapid transitions between segments, and it’s likely many will move on swiftly because it’s simply too much. But that’s largely the point: Intensities spills the guts of dark, dirty metal. Utterly deranged, this is the best kind of nasty.

AA