Under the (blunt) knife. — From cryptid obsessed commune and slime sopping open-air delicatessens to the varietal grotesqueries resultant of thee great ape’s ongoing thanatotic war against nature Santa Cruz, California-borne experimental ‘old school’ death metal quartet Dipygus seek out their third level delve into weirding death’s obsession with the exaggerative aplomb of a post-millennial shock site, an old timey anthropological horror creature cabinet, and documentarian history of barbaric human massacres rolled into one mind-boggling joint. We come out of the other side of the neuron-lined feeding tube that is ‘Dipygus‘ thrilled by the textural sweep-and-suckle of their villi, noting their ultra-specific taste for mutations, cross-species implants as well as the doom n’ grind obscuration of ancient death metal and its own anthropological twists per the late 80’s and early 90’s. As the band continue to define their brutal curiosities what’ll undoubtedly surprise the mud-filled ears and cross eyed minds in search of club-swinging kicks herein is that these mutants are not only bravely stepping under the light, er, showcasing clearest yet production values to date but that their disturb-a-thon presentation now comes face to face with its own horrified form on the operating table and begins making tough choices between excess and impact on this inescapably defining release.

Dipygus formed a little over ten years ago circa 2013 between folks intent on making barbarous, unclean death metal as their communal skills developed for a couple of years. Regular meetings would eventually yield a series of minor releases in approach of their debut full-length album (‘Deathooze‘, 2019), a moldering beast which’d had a firm grasp upon what I’d consider the core Autopsy dynamic wherein thrashing, unsteady mid-paced pieces line up with bursts of grinding hardcore punk and doom metal at an unpredictable rate. That sound had its own quirks, each song had its own subject or story to tell and all of them were focused on the obscene by way of sampled vignettes and such, lining their aesthetic up with that of early 90’s Impetigo, Nuclear Death and certainly the psych-death freakouts of ‘Acts of the Unspeakable‘ by the time their second LP (‘Bushmeat‘, 2021) clarified their general personae with even more experimental sounds. Though I was in it for the death metal ninety percent of the time it was almost just as interesting to dig through the foul realities, unbelievable experiences and forgotten atrocities which the band were referencing and I don’t think I’d began to fully appreciate the adventure of their music until I’d spent some extra time with their discography as a whole when reviewing their follow up mLP (‘Wet Market‘, 2023).

Prior Reviews:

Click on each title to open the review in a new tab.

‘Deathooze‘ (2019) [3.75/5.0]

‘Bushmeat‘ (2021) [80/100]

‘Wet Market‘ (2023) [82/100]

The major expectation going into ‘Dipygus‘ was some manner of evolutionary clash, something additionally experimental (a la ‘Wet Market‘) per the course taken thus far and I think at the very least Dipygus have delivered a worthy third step within their difficult to predict primitive death-art presentation without escaping the margins of ‘old school’ death metal instrumentation and movement. In simpler terms: “They still got them weird riffs.” and that is important rooting for repeated and focused listening on my part as the Hayden Hall album art, crystalline logo treatment, and dungeon-hardened but crispy enough production values welcome the tortured mind into its ‘ready primed lair. As if to assume you’ve already perused volumes one and two beforehand, “Perverse Termination (Bulb of Force)” doesn’t make a big fuss upon introduction beyond a quick hit of sampled speech in wonderment of primitive man reborn though we find the band kicking into their first pit-ready groove without hesitation from that point. Though the trilled-out rhythms and their gloomy meandering riffs do a fine job of stirring the pot up to a cave-filling stink alongside some righteous diving and scrambling leads I’d found myself most impressed by the drums per their coordinated stamping as well as the use of toms and this bigger, high-set throne from which they receive a most voluminous downcast reverberation. In any case they’ve wandered into scene, creeping (albeit loudly) through that first piece as a first impression.

“AquaGenesis” hits the gas, so to speak, as its guitar synth warp sidles up against the ceremonial downpour of the introduction and pulls into a call-and-response main riff beside a couple of thrashing variants which develop as the song finds its footing in crusted-out ‘tribal’ transitions. Though the bass guitar seems to be distorted its balancing act with the guitars allows all three main voices to speak at once, accentuating the flow between solo trade-offs and the directional changes signaled by the basslines. There is a sort of primal prog/death feeling to this movement which carries through the first several pieces on the album without losing the core ‘Severed Survival‘ wallop (see: “Monrovia, LR 1990”) at the center of their own vernacular, the height of this affront being the deeper swerves taken on the reeling, swinging movement of “Vipers at the Pony Keg.” Rest assured they’re still pretty damned good at this death metal thing and that’ll still be true as the rest of the album takes every chance it can to get weird with it per the grinding death slaps of “Огромный Кальмар (Ross Sea Trawler)” and creeped synth interlude “Bug Sounds II (Megascolides australis)”.

The greatest point of interest per my own taste, and in looking beyond what ‘Wet Market‘ had introduced, came with standout “The Dover Demon” wherein we find that fusion of guitar synth and whipping deathgrind blasts meet each other as if sewn together unwillingly and it works in a way which you’ll simply not hear anywhere else. Before they can fully fuse those entities together Dipygus pull into what is probably a much more reasonable solution in the game of Twister which presses all six limbs in various directions by way of the ~11.5 minute exploration of the Stegosaurus’ secondary brainwaves, essentially a death-doom metal piece in their own style and atmospheric gall which again makes great use of a warmly shambling bass guitar tone, phasing hot synth, and overall tightened rhythm section. This represents a different, fare more readable monstrosity than the psychedelic shatter and warped movement of ‘Bushmeat‘ but with the same garage-built death metal horror at the controls.

Does all of this make a strong enough argument that Dipygus have taken ahold of their own sound and vision on this self-titled third album? Yes, but I could’ve (might’ve already) made that argument a couple of releases ago. The main point to make here is that their work crests upon more serious musical value beyond stylized sound and interesting themes on this latest record, eking out their own space in a way which should be readily appealing to death metal fans. For all of the cyclic rehashing of the old ways which we are subject to year-over-year it is great to identify these folks as more than a cool-weird outlier getting dirty with it, but rather a consistent standout in ravenous pursuit of the forbidden knowledge and crazed delusions of humanity. A high recommendation. [82/100]

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