“And as that sunless day began to dim, our vision was still held by that thing which dangled ominously in the dusk. Its composition appeared to be of the blackest earth, of earth that had gone stagnant somewhere in its depths, where a rich loam had festered into a bog of shadows. Soon we realized that each of us had fallen silent, entranced by a deep blackness which seemed to absorb our sight but which exposed nothing to scrutiny except an abyss in the outline of a man.” Thomas Ligotti, The Shadow at the Bottom of the World

We sit at the mouth of the cave knowing we cannot re-enter, incapable of accepting a lifetime of torsion per the unnaturally accelerated sensation of passage into nous, singed and suffering in pursuit from that point on. The chase persists nonetheless, sparking and fizzling repeatedly in torturously bivalent sentience as co-processed realities paired between the darting eyes of seek-and-discovery and the diminishing returns of knowledge’s enrichment create a lingering pain mid-frontal lobe. Binary pathways lead us in desperation away from, or towards, spiritual capacity per gawking simian amusement with what we are given, or, in pursuit of a mind honed with scientific precision. Each path comprises existential vexation worth musing ’til a point of self-destructive overpopulation (and environmental collapse) necessitates a return to the cave. With individuality-as-combat staving off effective communal adaptation gawking outrage becomes entertainment for the pridefully devolved and feigned justice-keeping a collectivist obsession. On their second full-length album Toronto, Ontario-based abstract black metal trio Thantifaxath bathe in the fumes of the sunbaked and forest fire lit human dementia of today, breathing deep of the reeking waves of burnt skin under Sol’s gaze as smoking landscapes lend their craft the horrors of cataclysm-in-scene as they illustrate our quickly accelerating downturn. As a ritual of ruthlessly intentional feats ‘Hive Mind Narcosis‘ is an unhealthy intoxication, the bacchantes embodied from more than two angles in many-sided analysis of collective madness and the terrifying yet inspiring possibilities that come with a thoughtlessly reactionary polis and too-late revolution. By stretching the possibilities of their avant yet connective craft through an even more deeply mathematical honing of expressive shapes these folks remain painfully human, organische in their characterization of the unreal fractal machinations of the species at seeming peak potential. It is sublimely coherent art-black metal music with impressive contempt for our current era of blandest categorical functionality.

Thantifaxath formed in an era where anonymity, obscurantism, and dauntingly upscaled impressionism was en vogue for some and an enduring point of purpose for others. It was also arguably the peak of variously overstated gluttonies of temporal and atmospheric indulgence in the avant-garde black metal headspace, leading many to compare the band’s earliest works, limited to a self-titled debut mLP (‘Thantifaxath‘, 2011) to the effect of then recent milestones such the first few Krallice releases. This made sense in terms of ambitious yet precise guitar voicing as underground mystery cults increasingly formed in the image of Deathspell Omega‘s ‘Paracletus‘ and Portal‘s ‘Swarth‘ solely on the lessons of guitar technique, sound design, pacing and atmospheric bluster they’d introduced, but in this case these folks had more insight and expertise than was typical at the time. There was absolutely nothing developmental about that first release but it was admittedly only a brief window opened, a gentle breeze which expertly introduced the signature droning sense of progression amidst the stink of room-filling existential nausea which these folks have always lead with. Terms like progressive, experimental and avant-garde would suggest something almost unintentionally great in the world of underground black/death metal which is entirely false in terms of describing this band’s greater output as they’ve always done a convincing job of generating music with confidently conveyed intent.

Surrealistic mathematical abstraction for effect but, not only that. — I’ve never understood Thantifaxath as well as I do today and of course I have receipts documenting the process of indoctrination wherein my initial disinterest slowly became vexation and ultimately fandom. Their debut full-length (‘Sacred White Noise‘, 2014) was a shock to my subconscious enough that I’d set it as #20 on My Best of 2014 list but it was evident I hadn’t listened close enough at that point to know what it actually was. It wasn’t until I’d dug into my impressions of their follow-up mLP (‘Void Masquerading as Matter‘, 2017) that the lightbulb had clicked overhead and the genius of their anxious surrealistic muse began to sink beneath the skin. The process of reflecting on that record over the years since finds it a serious favorite with “Cursed Numbers” in particular beckoning back to me, haunting nights of transient insomnia as an entirely rare thrill worth returning to; Ultimately the main pull of their work up to and including that point was the dichotomy of expectation and reality, breaking down the initial effect of seemingly dissonant or atonal phrases into movements with purpose and clear progression. Whereas so many artists labeled as avant-black metal rely upon speed and noxious grating to create liminal points of uncertainty as atmosphere Thantifaxath‘s work is notable for being entirely readable, deliberate rather than animalistic, or, amateurishly scratched at. Instead it is the phrase that is cryptic in its motivation beyond feeling and their music an experience of curious horror, sonic indulgence and increasingly ambitious vision which is braced by some manner of considerable musical education once we’ve buried our faces under the hood of the machinery.

If Thantifaxath intended to be dissected to a molecular degree in terms of composition as a point of training the audience ear they’d likely not have an anonymous presence. If music theory and practice is the language you understand best when it comes to music it makes sense to see their work as “technical” in relation to their general slotting-in to the avant-metal realm per clear talent for songcraft but this capability is built for effect and not heroic ambition or performative wizardry. The theatre of ‘Hive Mind Narcosis‘ and each of the trio’s past works lies moreso in the realm of feeling, compositions which aren’t so much complexly read as they are intended to tap into surrealistic emotional timbres and natural chemical responses to sensorial overload in order to create music which compels the listener’s interpretation from a state of awe and immersed intensity. It will be difficult for some to remove themselves from the urge to investigate behind the veil, and they will be impressed if going there, but this only adds to the clash of many perspectives available to a rare showing such as this. It works for both the thrill-seeking hedonist and the scholarly mechanist alike when rhythmic play with meter arrives with such intention and dark vibrancy and most listeners will have gotten a brain full of this theatric stalk n’ chase between opener “Solar Witch” and the ~11 minute feature of “Surgical Utopian Love” which kick off the album. In my case I’d not wanted to continue just yet but rather to go back and investigate exactly what’d happened in those first seventeen or so minutes, soon realizing that I’d do well to let it flow and return with the bigger picture later.

Though there is a six year gap between ‘Void Masquerading as Matter‘ and ‘Hive Mind Narcosis‘ analyzing the space between then and now will amount to pecking at the minutiae of rhythmic machinery and appreciating the practical honing of production values, Thantifaxath still sound like themselves and move with the same impatient, nuanced energy. Whereas a band like Imperial Triumphant present a challenge ah via a Zorn-like negation of musical language the phrasing found on ‘Hive Mind Narcosis‘ is familiar in its spaciously presented dramatism and broadly whipped dreariness and brightly lit affect. “Surgical Utopian Love” in particular creates a contained, greyed-out space and the signature sense of rhythmic levitation not unrelated to past works but without the hiss of static and colliding sonic layers present in ‘Sacred White Noise‘. While we do not find the fiery richness of ‘The Furnaces of Palingenesia‘ or the rippling and emboldened mid-tones of still-beauteous ‘Adumbration of the Veiled Logos‘ we do find similarly contemporary use of space here, a celebration of shrillness for the sake of giving equal precision to the upper register of the guitars and the malign hiss of the vocals and their cold delivery. There is a droning monotony found in the transition from that longer piece into the tentative, restlessly lingering pulse of “The Lost Kingdom of Wolves” which necessarily sets up the swaying delirium which soon becomes the point of the piece and a major characteristic of the mid-section of the full listen.

A haloed, ashen corpse standing dead in the dark. — Modulation of the riff into blurred, unsteadily draining shapes lingers away from the tenets of black metal into increasingly vague extreme metal abstraction, a style of rhythmic movement which Thantifaxath‘s guitarist should be best known for at this point. Between “Burning Kingdom of Now” and “Hungry Ghosts” we find each major statement is typically punctuated by percussive hits or quick changes of rhythm, almost always in descending progression as we more-or-less walk down an escalator in motion for the duration of this second act (the third through fifth pieces) presenting large scale tonal relationships while leading with moment to moment thematic arcs of riff. This is most effective on “Burning Kingdom of Now” for my own taste thanks to the dizzying wave of the conductor’s wand that occurs throughout whereas “Hungry Ghosts” dissolves into Penderecki-edged math metallic fusion’d dance. This will serve as the meat, the substance and the point of release beyond the first act on the full listen and should present the most clear fixation on notable rhythmic play beyond the considerable opener. “Blissful Self Disassembly” is an ambient drone metal piece which serves as a refrain and building introduction for closer “Mind of the Sun” where we find the engine revving in ascent rather than on drain. If we can consider this the finale and a brief shock of the ear back into action as their symphony ends it is a functionally engaging piece, one of the more linear on the full listen which lends some excitable energy to its jarring endpoint. All instruments drop and the album quickly cycles back without pause.

The “thought” and general impression of the full listen initially read as incomplete in my mind and not in the sense that Thantifaxath hadn’t been thorough enough in their presentation but that they’d simply found a reasonably thrashing cutoff point rather than an elaborate finale. The density of ideas found on ‘Hive Mind Narcosis‘ successfully engages the mind with a demented message, a dementia-ridden affect which is as disturbing and inspiring as guided hallucinations should be. It all comes with some manner of profundity either in dynamic conflux or hand-wringing disassembly but most important of all it arrives in a singular, continuous contemporary voice which miraculously remains engaging for a full ~47 minutes. For many extreme metal bands this manner of “it” factor, the throat gripping hung-on-every-word sort of sensation achieved within a fine work, comes by chance (or, dry imitation) but in this case the high-minded obsession fed into this record and the sorcery available to the mechanisms created within gets us there… or, somewhere entirely unique to Thantifaxath. A very high recommendation.

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