Lawless creations set to guard the gates of cosmic disorder and embody entropic necessity Kolkata, India/Toronto, Canada-based black/death metal trio NIRRITI present chaos as true equilibrium sustained on this harried and challenging debut full-length album. Posited as shared refractions of the psychoid realm ‘Dhrupad Anutpada (ধ্রুপদ অনুৎপাদ): Apophatic Ragas of Non-Origination‘ rightfully vexes within its harshly pummeled, scraped and skronking afire form of grinding bestial black metal. Though the unusual and purposefully noxious noise guitar informed tumult of their work is not without precedence there is yet something bizarrely convincing about the unhinged tunneling which occurs herein.

Nirriti unified circa 2019 between nefarious masked individuals suspected to be aligned with the Kolkata Inner Order as well as serpent cult Nuclearhammer. Their initial self-description was “Kalikshetra metal of death” (now “black noise”) a form of raw and impulsive black metal nox they’d explored on their two song debut EP (‘অসূর্যস্পর্শা (Asuryasparsha)‘, 2020) where there was some shared unkempt extremity ah via the grind-spasms of Nyogthaeblisz but not quite as crushed and ear-bleeding as a band like Subduer. Fans of earlier Tetragrammacide should certainly take a closer ear to the band’s initial basal expression, a hurling of chaos bestial black/war metal and raw-grinding noise sans the tighter riffcraft offered by black/death metal cohesion. These are freely formed, often disembodied pieces which speak to some manner of frenzied improvisation but with each layer of performance more informed than the last.

The general effect of Nirriti‘s music reflects an enlightened sort of malaise, a discomfort achievable only through ascetic observation of cacophony revealed in obsessive bursts. As if staring through a gravel and blood-caked jeep window upon war crimes in machine-struck waves, the mind achieves a disembodied state herein as death is illustrated as overwhelming reality echoing all around, a level of awakening which reminds the viewer that the glass which separates them from atrocity is only situationally bullet-proof. That is to say that for all of the crashing, swerving and ultra-echo stoked vocalizations imbued the anxiously milling rhythms the mind might discern herein should leave thoughts spent, skull perturbed but also desensitized to the din of obnoxious violence.

Presented in six irregularly shaped acts ‘Dhrupad Anutpada (ধ্রুপদ অনুৎপাদ): Apophatic Ragas of Non-Origination‘ persists within a form of surrealistic extremism informed by nodes of interest which are variously commonplace (per the niche) and outlier strewn depending on the listener’s perspective. Some appreciation for the raw reality of black metal and grindcore drum performance in practicum is obviously enforced per Nirriti‘s capture, escaping any manner of studio-juiced blandness within a dire and untamed set of ritualized, often unbroken movements. Scrambling layers of dissonant riffs and unpredictable guitar swells follow the ignition offered by the drums and occasionally find compounding motioning from the bass guitar before all is blanketed in the obfuscating horror-echoes of vocalist Bhasma, a force which intentionally breaks apart all sense of cohesion within their work. Fans of the more maniacal edge of Antedulivian and especially ‘Primal Incinerators of Moral Matrix‘ should appreciate this effect outright though I would offer these works as much longer, less ordered feats approaching psychosis within their persistence.

Though the mania-inducing tunnel of it all may appear psychotic, almost psychedelic in its loss of perceptible “rock” structure feature Nirriti yet finds perceptible patternation delivered in wriggling, often ranting threads which cut throughout most pieces. The most digestible example of this is probably the main line through “In the Hallways of Pure Existence, Freewill And Determinism Play Their Futile Game Of Chess” where off-kilter, almost skronking framing tows descension through. If you’d headed into ‘Dhrupad Anutpada (ধ্রুপদ অনুৎপাদ): Apophatic Ragas of Non-Origination‘ expecting something closer to say, Impetuous Ritual and their oft total rhythmic alignment this should prove jarring as something more Penderecki-like in its chittering scrawl and hard-cut rhythmic chop (re: “One Foot on Samsara and the Other on Nirvana”).

What this means for the larger listening experience is less a fractionation/integration of harsh noise and moreso an almost noise rock induced act of brutality, a mystifying level of endurance applied to streams of inhuman consciousness. Nirriti‘s work is no less cruelly achieved than expected but conflicting layers of circularly scribbled lead rants, off-cut chords and such do ultimately read as avant-garde actions performed at least partially off the cuff, a “non-sensical” conversation atop drum patternation which is both creator and victim of the haul of noise achieved. We could easily debate and interpret the effect/meaning of a song like “Golden Yolk Of A Black Egg Of A Multicolored Peacock” and its ~8 minute ever descending groan, maybe even pick through their chord choices and such, but it seems that the face value effect achieved and the feeling one is imbued with per engaged listening is far more the point.

There are fewer and fewer extreme metal bands today conjuring such possessed, unfiltered and rawly self-torn chaos as this inadvisable debut from Nirriti, a total vexation which reads as unceremoniously extreme and caustic for its duration. Though it should rightfully read as brain-scrambling waves of erratic gestures writ without any agreement between its actors ‘Dhrupad Anutpada (ধ্রুপদ অনুৎপাদ): Apophatic Ragas of Non-Origination‘ is presented in such a way that this appears intentioned, fascinated with the sensation of going off the rails without ever finding them. The magick of this is that their creation never appears unserious in the context of “war metal” adjacency, either by theme or the actual note-for-note craze of their stance it all throttles past with purpose rather than parody and I’m not sure many acts could pull that off. A moderately high recommendation.

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