Band:	Pincer Consortium
Album:	Geminus Schism
Style:	Avantgarde metal, Black metal, Death metal, Industrial metal
Release date:	September 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Alpha Omega Decay
02. Twin Galactic Tides
03. Schizoid Rivalry | Double Occultation
04. Dual Termination Shock
05. Tandemic Dispersal
06. Spectral Dyad
07. The Bi-fold Conclusion

When a band’s debut album comes with a 448-page artbook that provides illustrative accompaniment to its extensive lyrics (which include lines such as “icosadodecahedronal architecture, cubicuboctahedronal configuration”), it’s safe to assume that the musicians behind it have a very particular vision.

The musicians in question are Maciej Pasinski and Pete Dempsey, who first established themselves as part of Qip and Scald (UK), respectively. After meeting in 2019, the pair first set their sights towards unreleased material from the recently disbanded Scald (UK), re-imagining and re-recording tracks in a process that ultimately led to the release of Regius I in 2021. After temporarily resurrecting Scald (UK), the duo then decided to strike out under a new moniker, Pincer Consortium, who have now unleashed their debut full-length album, Geminus Schism.

The project’s style is described in its Bandcamp blurb as ‘hyper-progressive industrial death/black metal’. Of all the constituent styles, I would posit that death metal is the most prevalent, with black metal making a somewhat secondary contribution. The industrial elements in Geminus Schism are comparatively minor; additionally, while the record could be described as progressive in some aspects, the approach of Pincer Consortium arguably veers more towards the avant-garde.

However, it’s not ‘avant-garde death/black metal’ in the chaotic, cacophonic sense of, say, Venomous Echoes and their maddening debut album from last year. There is dissonance and weirdness to Geminus Schism, but by no means in excess; its experimental nature is arguably more subtle, and more in some of the ways it stylistically fluctuates between tracks. To begin with, the album shows off its blackened sensibilities on “Alpha Omega Decay”, a track that, like many on the record, features extensive onslaughts of blast beats from the programmed percussion; however, alongside the more intense riffs, tinges of dissonance and hoarse growls, there are clean tones used frequently in passages on the song, taking the track into more progressive, melodic and atmospheric directions in moments, and there are also moments in which their industrial edge is brought into the equation.

Another element introduced in this song that is a subtle yet persistent feature of Geminus Schism is the use of clean vocals. On this track, there are but moments in which faint backing vocals exist alongside the harsher rasps, and subsequent songs such as “Dual Termination Shock” and “Twin Galactic Tides” leave similar vocals in the mix as an unexpected melodic feature alongside fairly intense metallic onslaughts. Pincer Consortium do take the clean vocals further across the album, however; there’s a touch of Behemoth to the slightly ritualistic death metal on “Twin Galactic Tides” and “Schizoid Rivalry | Double Occultation”, and the band bring deep-pitched and group singing and chants into the picture in effective moments on these and other songs. More surprising are a guest female clean vocal cameo late in “Spectral Dyad”, and a prolonged gothic section in album closer “The Bi-fold Conclusion”.

With that degree of variety, it’s probably not surprising to hear that the instrumental part of the equation throws out some unexpected curveballs. The ‘core’ approach on Geminus Schism is a blast-heavy relentless death metal assault, and “Twin Galactic Tides” and “Dual Termination Shock” stick to this more than most songs here, but even they will mix things up with more melodic guitar moments, industrial fragments, and even some background operatic singing towards the end of the latter. “Schizoid Rivalry | Double Occultation” is more of a departure; it’s the longest song here, and ha quite a persistent ritualistic (and slightly theatrical) vibe, particularly courtesy of the percussion, and the way it ebbs and flows and incorporates different features to subtly morph itself keeps that intense processional feel fresh for all 11 of its minutes.

Pincer Consortium arguably get even bolder towards the end of the album, though. “Tandemic Dispersal” opens in atmospheric fashion, a slick drumbeat carrying a groove accompanied by electronic ambient layers, and the song really gradually and subtly escalates, until you reach a point where blasts, dissonant death metal riffs and harsh vocals are all present without an extravagant shift occurring. “Spectral Dyad” has almost the inverse journey in terms of intensity, kicking off in rampant fashion before culminating with spacious progginess, oddball keyboard soloing, and a dramatic deep clean-sung/chanted climax. “The Bi-fold Conclusion”, on top of its gothic rock/metal experiments, is the most bold with its incorporation of electronic features, from weird electronics in the opening stages contrasting with dissonant chords, to an unexpected conclusion of fun beats and bouncing sounds that cools the vibe after a relentlessly escalating blast beat assault immediately prior.

There’s a lot of variety here, as can be determined from the way the song descriptions above jump around, but it’s not a record that feels overtly eclectic, at least in part because that intensity at its core is sustained throughout much of its runtime, giving everything a broadly consistent sonic theme. There’s clearly a lot of creative thought that’s gone into it, as the elaborate lyricism and visual accompaniments firmly demonstrate, and this duo make evident their creative synergy and capacity for ingenuity within a context of metallic extremity.