Band:	Dead Neanderthals
Album:	Metal
Style:	Drone, Free Jazz
Release date:	October 2022

01. Unity
02. Fluidity

After melting doom death metal into drone it was time for Dead Neanderthals to melt atmospheric black metal into drone.

Dead Neanderthals got their start as a free jazz duo, though the "new wave of Dutch heavy jazz" was already pretty versatile in going outside of the norm of an already outside of the norm project, and 2020's Blood Rite is far from the only time the band has embraced something heavier, but it was the first time it was something overtly metal, alongside its companion from the same year, Cosmic Slime, which was more doom focused but less overtly metal. Well, titling this album "Metal" is about as overtly metal as one could possibly get, and having this be released back on Utecht Records does bring some expectations.

Metal is a very unsubtle album, bringing pretty much everything is has on its first listen. Comprised of two 20-minutes long behemoths, Metal takes the atmospheric and repetitive approach that black metal already had and pushes it to its very limit. The riffing is about standard pace for black metal, being much faster than what is usual for the glacial paces of drone, so that makes the drone aspect of the album feel less immediate. Instead, the repetitive nature morphs into a hypnotic one, a lot of it being standard fare for atmospheric black metal, just much more elongated. So, for better or worse, Metal is repetitive.

It's not like the music is just a complete loop. The vocals are the most obvious part that still shifts, and even them feel repetitive. Clearly, this is an album that relies on its sound. Or rather two sounds, one for each track, both being fairly similar anyway. There's plenty of similarities with Blood Rite, both being albums whose music was initially written for the live stage, this one specifically for a tour with Old Man Gloom, and both approach a metal genre into repetitive drone with very uniquely harsh vocals. And both of them feel like they rely way too much on a singular sound. You could listen to the first two minutes, take a 15 minutes walk, and you'd come back to the same riff. A neat experience the first time around, but not much to call for relistens.

Thus, I have the same praise and same criticism for this as I had for Blood Rite. A repetitive feedback for a repetitive album.