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Band: Coma.
Album title: dR_own [EP]
Release date: 10 April 2015
Label: Self-Released
Tracklist:
01. disappear
02. Access
03. Overflow (feat. Narbengrund)
04. Dehumanize
05. Aphenphosmphobia
From pain, rejection and suffering the art of musical darkness is reborn into chaos, and from the constant torture of human senses the art of chaos gains beauty, somehow the need of destruction from the feeling of agony by being drown into darkest corners of existence and self-rejection of everything wordly transforms into form, it comes in waves, and as such the entrapment of suicidal soul in the human body is even more evident when screams out of the void. There's only pain and darkness in the mind of sensory suicidal agonizing soul that wants to reveal its feelings and break free from the pain inside. It has always been like that when the Austrian outfit Coma. is in question, the first ever publicly exposed shemale fronted extreme metal or something act which since its beginning in 2012 was in many ways controversial and often known because of their provocative attitude and excessive appearance. Now, the band led by vocalist, keyboard player and songwriter Vøid has thrown upon us their ultimate menace, the EP with a confusing and meaningful title dR_own, where the band in all the anguish that human body and soul can take, bursts it out upon the fellow suffering humankind.
Coma. can be regarded for the fact that in those few years of their existence they released quite a lot of music, some demos, EPs, a couple of singles, videos, yet everything done completely by themselves,... but the new EP in question and as well their previously released single "Ghosting" shows one hell of a improved sound, even though at some point I can't get rid of the impression that the band is still in a search of their true identity and this is not necessary a bad thing. Let me explain... On dR_own you can find so many different things that you can't even count them all, but still in all this superficial chaos and mindless confusion there's a specific order, even more than that, there's so much emotion, it's almost unbereable at some point and there's so vivid expression of inner feelings transformed into sound like you can hear very rarely. On this EP you'll find three proper tracks and the ambiental, almost cinematic intro and outro. Each one of those is a complex structure, in a way chaotic, for example the blackened speeding industrial madness and noise on "Access". At moments it seems like the band has lost the line, like there's a lack of accuracy, maybe that's because of rather blurred up production. Nevertheless Coma. are able to manipulate the listener with constant mood changes, from extreme parts into atmospheric sensitive moments they can go in an instant, without any warning, it's like a scream of a confused mind. Vøid is really throwing his guts and all of the pain out of his body when he screams like the most suffering human ever existing on this planet, but he can with ease serve also with some almost clean vocals and speeches. That's the point where Coma. are connected with the genre called suicidal depressive black metal, but the excessive use of electronics and samples makes it anything but just that, it makes it perverse in many ways. Just listen to the track "Overflow" where as a guest vocalist is featured Narbengrund from German symphonic black metallers Totengeflüster and this vocal duet is so vividly poignant and blasphemous, but at the same time the track gets more than just one dimension, it's like a sadistic story told through music. If "Access" is an extreme chaotic confusion of many polarities, then "Overflow" is another story, mainly due to the use of really elaborated sparse synths and well controled strong rhytmic line build upon a reverberate bass line, with a couple of tremolo picking black metal guitar lines in the background to spice everything up. My favorite one is almost twelve minutes long sonic depressive insanity of "Dehumanize", where dark ambiental elements converge nicely into industrial electronic layers and from there into avantgarde black metal with some melodic excursions that came near to something like blackgaze or even post-metal. I can almost feel the agony and pain in here when Vøid cries like a wounded animal. There's a part that reminded me to Woods Of Desolation and another one that's near to Wolves In The Throne Room, but I believe that bands major influences could be found in bands such as Shining, Lifelover and Vanhelga to name a few from this side, but as well the whole range of different artists like Nine Inch Nails, Meshuggah, Slipknot or even Tool.
dR_own is one of those releases that are simply impossible to categorize, it's a completely new level of experimentation, yes it's extreme, it's suicidal, perverse, poignant and obscene. Vøid and co. did an EP which is very hard to get through, it's complex as much as you can take it, but yet bereable and it holds a thick sense for anything that could be extremely beautiful or at the same time extremely revolting. The picture can't be blurred more than that. It's like the listeners ears got raped when insanity, madness and revolt against all the norms of human existence so eloquently are forced up right into your mind. Coma. must be credited to make such a bold piece of music, to disclose all of their fears, agony and traumas in such a way. I believe that it's finally time for them to start working on a full-lenght, but first of all all this fury and madness must get some more control and in my opinion there's just one little step to get there. Also a bit more elaborate production that could give some more depth and some more emphasis on the final mix wouldn't hurt, yet could make this release much more intriguing for larger amount of fans of extreme art. (Btw... to get more of an insight into dR_own please read the 'song by song' commentary that Vøid exclusively did for Terra Relicta over HERE.)
Review written by: T.V.
Rating: 7,5/10
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