Word of warning, kids – Google with caution! Miss out one vital letter as I did and it will (ahem) throw up all sorts of emetophilic wonders for you to (un)digest. Certainly their name is quite a mouthful and in English translates as ‘The fetish of the undeterred impetus.’ Yep, this is as peculiar as it sounds and the website contains a heavy description of what this means. The sexualisation of psychological trauma, the impetus expresses itself through destruction and morbidity. Frankly it’s a bit much to take in straight away, much like the album itself then. Psychohygeine translates from German simply as ‘mental health,’ and perhaps if yours is in tip-top condition this isn’t going to be very easy to get your head around.
Coming in with ‘Filterlose Trunkenheit’ we are introduced straight away to a kind of bludgeoning guitar sound that certainly isn’t hangover-friendly to say the least. Before long this winds down via a screeching siren and into a suppressed, mellow dip before working its way into mayhem. At times it’s a bit difficult to fathom out and doesn’t bow to convention, while the core black metal elements are there especially through the frenzied and chaotic drumming which is excellent and as the track progresses the guitars sound much more ferocious. The vocals sure are a nice feature as they allow a glimpse into a truly wretched soul; the cries aren’t constant by any means and sort of come out to play in intermittent blasts, more adding feeling and flavour to the music and there’s an understated sense of the theatrical in its expression although by no means are they over the top. ‘Infantile Sinnesfrüchte’ is a fine example of this, as P’s moans and wails mix in with the general mood created by the music. As things progress there is a sudden moment where a jangly Agalloch-esque guitar tone works its way in and sets things off with a cool swagger before returning to its original state.
Intensity is one word that keeps springing to mind throughout this album, especially the first disc as the whirlwind riffs create a really intense atmosphere and rather a claustrophobic one that really feels like the walls are closing in on you. The review would also be incomplete without at least once using the word experimental, and ‘In erigierter Abgründigkeit’ – the fourth track hints at moodier and stranger things to come. Over a rather eerie little melody, the vocals here sound like some sort of satanic backwardly-masked message and all feels a bit sinister. The second disc however takes the experimentalism up a firm notch and take a more electronic approach. Having listened to this whilst in a hypnopompic state one morning it was certainly a bit trippy when drifting in and out of consciousness to the disconcerting sounds of ‘Annäherung - Wechselwirkung bipolar,’ sending sudden ephemeral flashes of abandoned blood-drenched babies crying through the darkness. ‘Schändungszyklus’ scrapes its way in before a kind of industrial noise emerges; layers of discordant noise and a guitar that warns you to stay the fuck away, while tracks like ‘Psychogramm’ take my head to the demented dentist’s chair and deciding I’ve had enough of the drilling I do a brave thing and get up.
At 107 minutes this is no quick fix and truth be told I did find it a bit of a struggle to get my head around it; the cyclical nature of the first album does feel a bit repetitive especially on the first few listens before you’ve had chance to dig out the subtleties within, but perseverance in this case was rewarded. If you like your music to be of the variety that could cause psychological trauma then this is for you.
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