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Neoandertals: Australopithecus

29/02/12 || Cobal

Damn, have I encountered feelings on this one! I needed to say it, sorry for that. Having thoroughly listened to “Ebu Gogo Gutting the Child”, Neoandertals’ previous release, I was eager to listen more of their work. As far as I was concerned, these two Estonian death metalers, were all about brutality, technicality, originality and controversy. “Australopithecus” came to nothing but confirm this, except you can cross the word “brutality” from the list.

“EGGTC” quickly became one of my favorite brutal albums ever, and you might need to know it was released as recently as last year. The reason? I’ve always praised independent musicians who dare to do something, almost anything, completely out of normal. Few are those that try it, and even fewer the ones that manage to do it without monumentally fucking it up. The project/band consists on a drummer babe, and a male bass player/growl vocalist, and that’s that! What you get is brutal, technical and mostly unheard death metal in the form of a conceptual album having as central idea the deeds of human’s forefathers, the Neanderthals, as a result. A killer combination if you ask me.

Now of course, avant-garde projects always annoy the critics in almost every single scene, and hey, ain’t talking exclusively about metal or music! Even playing a metal sub-genre most generally accepted such as brutal death metal, whatever that means, Neoandertals have managed to be one of those bands that split the audience into two well defined groups. Either you praise or hate’em. Metal police, those experts in everything that has to do with metal, who know absolutely everything that there is to know about it in despite of the fact most of them still live with their parents and are unemployed, and who love to decide what is and what ain’t metal in the first place, have given Neoandertals several particularly hard times with their comments. Modern works such as this are not for close-minds, that’s fo’sure.

I’m positive “Australopithecus” is gonna bring more experts (HA!) to the group of haters, but don’t get me wrong; in a world where the majority of people listen to total shit, this might be a good sign. The band had stated it clearly in advance:

The third album “Australopithecus” is something really different. Dedicated to lesser-known, simpler hominids, it is an instrumental record containing adventurous drumbeats and a fresh approach towards bass-heavy music.

They meant it. Regarding the drums, I can say they were the very first thing that stroke when listening. I would say drumming might be the reason why this can hardly be considered a metal release. The sound is… almost kind of jazzy, full of counterpoints and syncopes. As a matter of fact, I’m sure Roland Seer, prior drummer for the band and the one who actually recorded this work, is strongly influenced by the most hard-bone hot and free jazz drummers out there, don’t ask me who, jazz music isn’t at all my area of expertise even though this was quite recognizable to me. Expect no blast-beats, no double-kicking on the bass drums, and indeed no punky _toopa toopa_s. At first sight, for a metal listener as myself, it’s easy to feel as though not only the drum lines but the songs themselves were going nowhere. I don’t think this is the most accurate appreciation, yet I must admit even I felt that way, although the Roland’s high proficiency is undeniable.

Once you get over the impression the drums made in you, you’ll be able to listen to the bass lines… and that’s it. This is the most minimalistic metal release I’ve ever heard of! There’s nothing here but drums and one bass line. I mean not even a bassist who overlaps layer after layer of bass riffs, melodies and arrangements to end up sounding as a complex texture, but one bass line per song. I’m not complaining, is just that it was so difficult to swallow. It’s not that in his previous works Rain Pohlak had made us get used to friendly-listening-to songs, but this!?!? That’s gonna be your first reaction (at best) I’m sure; Again ‘twas mine. But also again, once I was ready and listened to it another five times perhaps, it became an acquired taste. Rather than standard music which encompasses rhythm, melody and harmony, bass lines seem to narrate passages of the obscure daily life of the hominids this record is about.

Musically, that was that. Unless you’re somehow familiar with minimalistic, conceptual, contemporary and experimental music (real experimental music, not only a bunch of creeps weirdly and pointlessly adding odd effects to their shitty songs), you’ll find the whole album nonsense.

There’s still one essential aspect I haven’t covered yet. When it comes to the subject of conceptual albums coming from conceptual projects the connections between the ideas that inspired the final work and the work itself are always to be judged, or at least considered. Neoandertals had devoted their previous two releases (I’m unaware of any other work of’em, yet I know they released a demo I haven’t had the chance to check out) to the Neanderthals, a primitive but advanced for their time form of humanoids who lived in Europe and Asia ‘round 28 000 years ago, right before the appearance of the first modern humans on Earth. Neanderthals were advanced indeed; they of course had a language and even some artistic expressions. Neoandertals previous releases were exactly that: brutal yet sophisticated.

The Australopithecus were a much more primitive form of life; extinct 2 million years ago, they were primal hominids, which apparently means they were much more similar to primates than to humans; some sort of missing link between the two species, if you like. As they were mostly animals, they had no verbal language or some kind of cultural expression, not to say any social organization except the one of the herd. “Australopithecus” stands for these characteristic precisely: evidently, there are no lyrics, and the music seems to narrate some aspects of their animal life. It’s kinda bizarre prehistoric documentary-tale that allows the listener to observe a completely different world. Think of it as another cavemen movie. Did you watch “The Quest for Fire”, the film? Have it in mind when judging this one.

I have no doubt haters will hate this. I could agree this isn’t exactly a metal release, though the connection with metal is clear and consistent. Sandra Vungi, current drummer for the band, gently shared this record with me so as to review it here before its official release next Feb. 17th. So you know. I’d like to publicly thank for your collaboration, as well as to close with a final comment: if you’re used to listen to more than the old meat’n’potatoes style, check this one out. It’s worth it.

7,5

Information
Released: 2012
Label: Independent
Website: www.neoandertals.com
Band
Rain Pohlak: bass
Roland Seer: drums

Tracklist
01. Australopithecus robustus
02. No Control Over Fire
03. Nocturnal Creatures
04. Dead Hominids
05. Frugivorous
06. Extinction

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