Tetragrammacide so far has stood out for two things. First is being a band billed as being from India, a country that, despite its huge population, has only recently began getting more traction with the bands it produced. And, while being at it, they also infused their aesthetics with some cosmic horror taken from Hindu mythology. Sure, that's something that's even more obvious with this albums clearly mythological cover art. But the other thing is that their music contained some of the most noisy war metal out there, and that's something that worked very interestingly with that specific part of their aesthetic. The demo stuff compiled on Third World Esoterrorism especially did well on living up to the "terrorism" part of that compilation's title, and even if subsequent releases, most importantly an EP and a full-length, went a bit beyond demo-quality as far as the sound goes, it still truly lived up to creating a sound as menacing as noisy.
And here is where Typho-Tantric Aphorisms From the Arachneophidian Qur'an comes in and pushes in two directions to set it apart from the previous Tetragrammacide releases. On one hand, the entire presentation, from the cover art to the song titles, pushes even further into the esoteric and the mythological. And that's something that is also reflected in the interludes having a more specific tone to fit the regional sound. On the other hand, the production also has been shifted a bit to turn down the noise factor to create something that feels more in line with war metal that is noisy by its rawness rather than feeling like the noise itself is part of the sound and the aesthetic. Somehow that makes the sound feel less specific to Tetragrammacide, or at least the Tetragrammacide that we knew.
That sort of makes sense considering that there were some lineup changes in the camp, with the only member remaining from the previous releases being the vocalist (unless Entropymurti, the bassist/guitarist, is the new pseudonym of someone that was already in the band and I'm a full), and while the vocals are definitely pretty instantly recognizable, I don't think they're especially the most impressive part of the sound, but something about how the production affects them that works really well with the dense sound. And while the denseness of the sound has been turned down, it still feels slightly more dense than something like Antediluvian, and it's that density working to emphasize the chaotic riffing and the pummeling drumming that really works the most in their favor. Having the riffing be a bit more clear in the production isn't as detrimental when a lot of it is as manic as the riffing here.
With a closer that felt like it incorporated all the latent noise that was left out from previous release to create something tinnitus inducing, Typho-Tantric Aphorisms From the Arachneophidian Qur'an still ends up sounding challenging despite some of its changing making it sound overall a bit more accessible by Tetragrammacide's standards.
I might check this one out soon.
