Abhorrent Expanse – Enter the Misanthropocene Review

By Dear Hollow

How experimental is too experimental? That’s the question Chicago’s Abhorrent Expanse posits. It’s clear from the title: Enter the Misanthropocene enters to play jazz and fuck shit up, and “Bitches Brew” is on its final notes. When the Lord of the Promo Pit designated the quartet as “death-drone,” I was intrigued and gobbled up rights. It was clear from the jump that Abhorrent Expanse was not the death metal act with a mammoth guitar tone I had hoped, but an improvisational free jazz quartet that decides to do extreme metal sometimes, with death metal, grindcore, and, yes, drone metal making short-lived appearances. Pushing the boundary between extreme lofty experimentation and outright nonsense, Enter the Misanthropocene is a sophomore effort that will take you to an abstract and uncompromising world – or straight to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin.

Abhorrent Expanse has a solid lineup, including caliber from Zebulon Pike, Celestiial, Obsequiae, and The Blight – even if its sound feels entirely convoluted. Following the controversial debut Gateways to Resplendence, Enter the Misanthropocene is largely the same, but its scope is larger, significantly reducing its drone content in favor of jazzy noodling, grind intensity, sprawling ambiance, and deconstructed death metal jaggedness. The drone that exists within is a short-lived sprawl that pops up periodically, giving a more abstract feel than its predecessor’s “dissodeath meeting drone metal in a dark alley behind the Kmart” vibe. Forty-eight minutes of whiplash-inducing tonal and tempo shifts, off-key twanging, random stoner sprawls, and an undeserved love for improv awaits – and I need a nap.

Say it with me: improv is bad. I get the whole avant-garde approach that John Zorn would drool over, that an improvised performance is a “never see it the same way twice” kind of deal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. As we’ve seen with typically good bands like Neptunian Maximalism or Bunsenburner, relying on group chemistry instead of thoughtful songwriting to create a singular experience hardly pans out – and Enter the Misanthropocene is no exception. Moments of avant-garde clarity in which the instruments align shine in the twitching obscure grind (title track, “Assail the Density Matrix,” “Dissonant Aggressors”), short-lived minimalist drone (“Praise for Chaos,” “Dissonant Aggressors,” “Ascension Symptom Acceleration”), haunting ritualism (“Waves of Graves”), and ambient calm (“Kairos”). Death growls are sparse. Enter the Misanthropocene is so free jazz and avant-garde it forcibly drags nonconsenting listeners into what seems like obscenely high art…

…Or incompetent musicianship. Much of Abhorrent Expanse’s sound is rooted in utter nonsense, and one that often gets played really fast. While there’s certainly artistic discomfort aplenty to be found on this record, in which I can see some merit (“Waves of Graves,” “Drenched Onyx”), these are scattered moments among what sound like the plonks and twunks of a novice fiddling with a new guitar at Guitar Center. Atonal noodling and off-beat drumming accounts for the majority of its forty-eight minute runtime, sounding entirely random. The drone-doom moments feel off-beat and misaligned (“Praise for Chaos”), some ambient moments are so subtle and minimalist that they just cover John Cage’s 4’33” for a bit before eventually becoming audible (“Nephilim Disinterred”), and by the end of the ten-minute closer “Prostrate Before Chthonic Devourment” you might feel like you’ve been through a prostrate exam.

The promotion around Abhorrent Expanse relies on similarities to dissonant acts like Portal and Imperial Triumphant – but in order to do that, they’d actually have to write some songs first. Gateways to Resplendence was challenging and avant-garde but anchored to a respectable degree; Enter the Misanthropocene is a leaf on the wind, being blown by one avant-garde gust to another with no semblance of gravity to save it. Its high-art status is a divisive issue, as the directionless noodling can be seen as either a challenging piece of art or four dudes who don’t know how to play their instruments. But isn’t that the nature of art itself? Abhorrent Expanse holds a mirror to art itself, making us question what is drivel and what is erudite – through the improvised off-key noodling of someone who has arguably never picked up a guitar before.

Rating: 1.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Amalgam Music
Websites: abhorrentexpanse.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 15th, 2025

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Blind Equation – A Funeral in Purgatory Review

By Kenstrosity

When I reach for something blindly, I hope for the best. As it pertains to the acquisition of promo, I calculate my chances of enjoying whatever I select as little as possible. Impulse reigns supreme, instinct takes precedence, gut feelings have the final say. This process ultimately led me to Chicago, Illinois’ Blind Equation. Originally launched as a chiptune-heavy cybergrind project, mastermind and main songwriter James McHenry steadily integrated other influences that distinguish this material from that of the greater subset. With A Funeral in Purgatory, written in the midst of great anguish and struggle on McHenry’s side, Blind Equation create their heaviest, most brutal, and yet most vulnerable and earnest work to date.

Resembling acts like DEATHTRIPPA, Blind Equation’s current iteration diversifies its palette with elements of goth and emo, death and doom, synthwave, and melodic black metal. To these ears, those attributes recall everything from AFI, Fires in the Distance, Silhouette, Gunship, and Labyrinthus Stellarum. Depressive tones and desperate wails reminiscent of Ghost Bath or Acathexis also meld beautifully with a hopeful atmospheric counterpoint—a reflection of McHenry’s use of songwriting as a mechanism for catharsis and healing during his darkest moments during A Funeral in Purgatory’s development. Brutal outbursts reminiscent of Anaal Nathrakh or Igorrr, and the occasional deathcore gravity blast, provide an additional dynamic that brings immense metallic heft to an affair that, to my knowledge, doesn’t utilize a single guitar. Unified, these myriad characteristics coalesce into something stylistically unique, instrumentally fascinating, and emotionally compelling.

More importantly, A Funeral in Purgatory is an absolute joy to experience. With contrasting numbers as divergent as my personal favorites, the blisteringly fast and exuberant “Flashback (ft. Strawberry Hospital)” and beautiful death doom closer “Incomplete,” you might expect A Funeral in Purgatory to be disjointed and haphazard. But the opposite is true. Blind Equation’s masterful, meticulous detailing brings unity and adhesion to the record, such that when I hear the eviscerating brutality of “… in Purgatory” juxtaposed against the vibrant gallop of “Flashback,” or the goth-soaked “Nothing” against the metalcore-breakcore mashup “it feels like the end (ft. JOHNNASCUS),” it feels natural and invigorating. An increased presence of slower, more dramatic passages in “A Funeral… ” and “Relinquished Dreams” allows Blind Equation’s heart-wrenching roars and introspective tones to shine through as the brilliant light of higher-pitched synths and chips fade, enhancing what are already compelling songs by creating deeper valleys and taller peaks. Ultimately, this approach to songwriting permitted me very little opportunity to correctly predict what happened next, while still capturing my attention so completely that with each new song I was ready, almost desperate, for the next twist to whip me into another dimension.

However, not all dimensions are created equal, and there are a couple here that don’t quite reach the same echelon as Blind Equation’s best. First and foremost are the interludes, “⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆✟⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺” and “still.” Musically, they are pretty and offer plenty of emotion, but don’t add enough to the storytelling to feel essential to the overall experience. I could argue the former brings novelty to the split title tracks “A Funeral… ” and “… in Purgatory,” but the requisite connective tissue is flimsy all the same. In a similar manner, “mourn” is somewhat lackluster compared to its album mates. This could be an unfortunate circumstance brought about by its barebones instrumentation, which is a stark departure from everything presented over the previous seven tracks. It could also be that its core ideas feel a touch underdeveloped by comparison. Either way, it represents one of A Funeral in Purgatory’s minor weak points. While in no way a detractor on their own merit, Blind Equation’s AFI-esque clean vocals, which only feature in the first three tracks, would bring even greater cohesion to the whole if they featured more consistently throughout.

It goes without saying that I didn’t expect what Blind Equation delivered, nor did I expect to like it this much. At the same time, I really shouldn’t be surprised at all, considering nearly all of my favorite records this year have been wild and unorthodox. A Funeral in Purgatory represents another entry in that varied category, of which there is no doubt. But it’s also one of the most fun and engaging electronic music releases I’ve encountered this year. So if you don’t mind your metal chipped to oblivion, laced with ecstasy, dressed in all black, with a raven perched on its shoulder, then A Funeral in Purgatory might just be your poison.

Rating: Very Good!
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records
Websites: blindequation.bandcamp.com/album | facebook.com/blindequation
Releases Worldwide: July 18th, 2025

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