Futurist Metal Bluegrass Death
It is fairly difficult to imagine the effects of schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder on the auditory senses. The idea of phasing in and out of this reality, or being on the cusp of one world very nearly entering another, is a sensation that very few people have the misfortune of experiencing. That being said, Brandon Seabrook’s newest release, Sylphid Vitalizers, is probably the nearest thing to a well-thought, avant-bluegrass recreation of said experience.
Seabrook’s Brooklyn-based metal-electronic-bluegrass slayfest is disorienting, to say very little, and literally maddening to say a bit more. Vitalizers relies on nu-metal repetition and electric instrumentation coupled with intense sections of banjo-slaying and large pans of New Wave synths and strings to create what Seabrook himself describes as “an alchemical spirit secreting large amounts of Oxytocin.” In other words, Vitalizers as a record sounds like the soundtrack to Deliverance if 1980s Stanley Kubrick were directing and had full say over the soundtrack; the album is a perplexing combination of eerie strings, dark electronic instrumentation, and banjo playing with a seriously sinister undertone.
Such left-field releases like Seabrook’s often require examination from two facets: technical and visionary perspectives. From a technical perspective, it can be said without a doubt that Vitalizers contains some of the best instrumentation across the board within recent history. Between the multiple instrument shredding, driving percussion and the both interesting and finely tuned synthesizers, this release represents a tremendous amount of talent on the part of Seabrook. The Brooklynite has his musical chops, hands down.
In terms of the intent in artistry as well as the vision behind Sylphid Vitalizers, it is certainly easy to write off this release as a poorly thought out alternative metal record, but saying so does an enormous injustice to Seabrooks’s vision. His music is the synthesis of instrumental and personal nihilism– and the madman enjoys it! Even a cursory glance at Seabrook’s Facebook page shows a slightly masochistic albeit impressive photo of his own banjo fretboard speckled in blood. Vitalizers, in this sense, cannot be regarded as just music, but something far more experimental and abstract; it represents both performance art in inception, as well as a nihilist experience conveyed through an active listen.
Seabrook is in some ways the Giacometti of modern experimental music, his futurist bluegrass-metal lovechild sonically resonating beyond the bounds of what would normally be considered physically possible for player and instrument. It is the dread-filled, near death experience in both performance and listening that he has created something intense and honest that transcends the medium of music. While not fit for the majority of music listeners who consider their taste “experimental,” or those who are faint of heart, Seabrook has created a remarkable and unique listening experience on Vitalizers worthy of respect and patronage.
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