Once again, several members of the Centipede Abyss community join forces under a new constellation; this time under the moniker Dandelion. The band’s name comes from a genus of plants, the taraxacum, characterized by their multiple petals, mainly white, yellow or orange colored. But this isn’t an essay about the beauty of nature, but about the beauty of sonic delirium.
So, let’s come back to the band, not the plant, with the name Dandelion. It’s a combo consisting of the next pretty faces: drummer Jared Moran (Ar’lyxkq’wr, Ambulacrum, Clinical Depression, Vertebrae Fetish Totem, Ishimura etc.), guitar player Pan Inentropy (Ar’lyxkq’we, Act Of Entropy, Zvylpwkua, Ukakuja, Mouth Of Cedar), bassist Ben Vanweelden (Pillar Amongst Willows, Ambulacrum, Atmossomta), and vocalist / keyboardist Ni (Lux Sine Lumine, Act Of Entropy, Zvylpwkua, Ukakuja). The bands mentioned are all part of the Centipede Abyss club, a family of same-minded artists, as you probably know (or not, but then again, now you do).
So, this newest outfit recorded and officially released one album until now, untitled, or if you want to, titled as Dandelion. It’s a four-tracker that - what else did you expect - totally fits to the out-of-the-box-minded roster of the parent label (which is run, by the way, by member Ni). Once again it is a very limited release, at least the physical one, being a jewel-case CD printed in an edition of thirty copies (as usual: no reprint will ever happen). It does come with a four-page booklet, containing salient poetry inside (a troubled libretto of disgust, corruption, deprivation, hallucination and despair), and confronting (cover) artwork. The latter is based on the work Die Qualen Der Hölle (known as Torments Of Hell) by Carl Ludwig Beutler von Säckingen aka Pater Athanasius, who was a Swiss monk, as well as a painter, living in Germany in the 17th century.
So, this is not a thesis on flowers (cf. the first paragraph) nor a treatise on apocalyptic late-medieval visual art, so let’s get over to the essence of this writing: the Music (or whatever) that defines Dandelion (the band) and Dandelion (the recording). All Is Of Fire, 4 Crowns On A Serpent, Forgive Me and Deified Death show us a perfected compound in between progressive and neurotic Avantgarde Grind, blackened Death-Doom, and fierce impro-laden Psycho Sludge. It mixes up hallucinoid, opposed-harmonious leads (reminiscent of several other projects these guys and girl are involved with), with droning and / or thwacking rhythm guitars, impressive shrieking basses (convincingly telling their own version of the story), very varied drums and percussions (with pernicious blast beats, thunderous drumrolls, soiled cymbal-rape and groovy patterns), and those distantly roaring, nefarious blackened voices that echo over the distant golden illumination of the night (this last part is secretly inspired by All Is Of Fire). It is fast, then again even faster, thereon shrinking into sluggish proportions. Sometimes it exhales an air of melodicism, soon after minimized towards complex perplexity (or is it perplex complexity?), structural mayhem versus deconstructive discipline…
Intense, destructive, overwhelming, confronting, detrimental and unforgiving; this first Dandelion effort represents the shining sapphire in the center of the debris…
https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/dandelion