Alphabetical Discovery - Week D, Day Five: Dodecahedron

Netherland's Dodecahedron have only released one album, 2012's Dodecahedron - a debut album more well-thought out and interesting than bands that have grafted for years to release something a tenth as good. As their name suggests, Dodecahedron are sharp and angular and their core black-metal sound sharpened with harsh and disharmonious technical and progressive elements; disorienting time-changes merge with a machine-like and robotic space-age atmosphere: this is not raw at all, it's a pristine and glistening industrial assault of unorthodox proportions. 

Although the music itself is jarring the album as a whole works extremely well; the three final tracks being a sort of trilogy - 'View From Hverfell 1, 2, and 3' - that the previous songs work towards. It really feels that way to, whereas the first half of the album is an industrial barrage of floating noises, discordant guitar progressions and pummeling drum-work, the second half seems to become less abrasive and more atmospheric, even conveying a melodic touch with  the odd guitar-solo! The two halves, so to say, are linked by the robotic industrial-ambient 'Descending Jacob's Ladder', five-minutes of disquieting space-age atmosphere; it sounds like being haunted and chased by some demonic spirit, alone, in deep-space, on a creaking and malfunctioning space-station. 

There is a consistent robotic and space-like ambiance to the album that works well with the sharp and angular approach - it is reminiscent of the French black-metal scene, Spektr and Deathspell Omega in particular, but it also reminds me of the atmospheric approaches of Colored Sands era Gorguts and Artificial Brain. Dodecahedron are a very excting band and, from their Facebook page, new music is in its advanced stages of gestation. In fact, the concept of the new album has been talked about - in an interview with Friedhof magazine, the band talks of  the album revolving 'around the five geometric shapes called Platonic solids. These forms have been an inspiration for the songwriting process and will be represented musically on the album. That's all we can say right now!' It seems that the band will continue on their weird geometric black-metal journey!