As we do all know, the Centipede Abyss community consists of bands with strong relationships in between the members. Okay, not all projects share musicians, yet many (most) of them are like an intra-familial gathering. With Zvylpwkua it is not different. This North-Atlantic outfit (I mean, the members hail from both the United Kingdom and the United States) still consists of Ionnonnisssz (involved as well with e.g. Ar’lyxkq’wr, Vertebrae Fetish Totem, Mouth Of Cedar and Cave), Yydraah (Ukakuja, Act Of Entropy, Lux Sine Lumine) and Tru’nymraat (Mouth Of Cedar, Act Of Entropy, Ar’lyxkq’wr, Ukakuja). And for this third recording, they were assisted by bassist Kthutyrrh, who is part of the Ukakuja and Mouth Of Cedar line-up as well.
After 2022’s Anomalous Altrium and The Outlying Entities (2023), Centipede Abyss and Zvylpwkua offer the innocent audience their newest work, called Abode… It is a seven-track recording that clocks about thirty-four minutes. Since I do not have a physical copy (not yet?), I have not much information about the recording process of the visual art. However, when it comes to the cover artistry, I have to say: it is almost an ironically deep-thought representation of the album’s title. One feels instantly welcome in this peaceful haven. The red-flaming color palette, the aquatic additions on the foreground, the menace that escapes from the building… I guess Inentropy’s morbid brain might be behind these visuals… Oh yes: once again it is extremely limited (40 copies this time) and there will be no reprint ever.
Anyway, Abode… opens surprisingly, eh, fair. Opener Exhuming A Thousand Shapes (nice title, by the way) is a rather Dark Drone Ambient / ANW-oriented intro with a horrific and ominous character, yet revealing bizarre elements too, like improvised cymbals and droning riffing. Yet as from Cataclysmic Creation, the four sweet humans behind this project present you another monumental mish-mash of Psychotropic Jazzcore, Grinding Blast-Death, Blackened Mathcore and Progressive Death Jazz. It’s purest Chaos, although ascending from a most well-directed and organic well of boiling acid.
The main ‘texture’, for what the definition of ‘texture’ might represent in this case, is like a barbaric interplay of hoggish rhythm strings (mind the soaring, floating four-string lines) and beastly leads, including brain-tormenting tremolo riffing and lightning-blinding soloing, sordid and cavernous deeply-growling grunts, and all-devastating drums and scorching percussions. This in a nutshell… It is damn fast in general, with a tempo that balances in between precipitating rapid and blasting eruptive. And that tempo permanently changes via psychedelic yet well-thought breaks or sudden supernova-like explosions. But it is so fine to experience more than a couple of decelerations too, organically woven throughout this sticky web of sonic pollution.
Moreover, more than once an admittedly succinct fragment of non-metallic grandeur passes by, with extraordinarily strange synths, avantgarde piano-rape and unexpectedly valiant field-recorded sampling. Most carols on Abode… do have such fragment(s), and just like the aforementioned intro Exhuming A Thousand Shapes, also a piece like Maelstrom Of Eyes is an intermezzo of droning, cinematic elegance, even-though it expresses mania too somehow.
Like before, Abode… is like a reinterpretation of Sonic Noise or Power Industrial stuff, translated into the subtle speech of well-calculated and cunning Grind Metal alike artifice. Energetic, convulsive, lunatic and surreal, Zvylpwkua are masters of aural mathematics and surgically precise sound-exploration. It’s like different waves of foreign sonority surround the listener’s eardrums with the fragile balance of distortion and complexity. For what it’s worth: I did appreciate both former efforts a lot, yet with this newest pièce d'Art macabre, Zvylpwkua transcend reason and competition…
https://zvylpwkua.bandcamp.com/album/abode
https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/abode