Sibiir is a quintet of experienced musicians from Sigh & Explode, Jack Dalton, Do You Love Melena? and Call:Vega who decided to unite in 2014 to get together and craft some heavy and intense tunes that would reflect their mutual love for the heavier and darker side of music.” It is safe to say on the evidence of their two track debut Swallow & Trap Them, intent has been brewed, explored, and rabidly achieved. A fusion of hardcore ferocity and spite, atmospheric black metal trespass, and murky post metal despondence, the band’s sound and release swarms the senses with carnivorous intent and suffocating malevolence. Yet in its depths there is an instinctive contagion which flirts from within the raw tempest, a compelling lure which just pulls you further into the savagery.
Swallow & Trap Them is one of those proposals which will alienate as forcibly as it enslaves, not easy to imagine the encounter leaving too many in the middle ground undecided on their take on the fury. That intensity just adds something to a release though, an imposing take it or leave it air virtually demanding a reaction of some sort and certainly the two tracks from the Oslo band enforces that question.
The title track comes first, bestial rhythms and just as feral riffs descending on ears in horde like fashion. Already there is hostility which has the senses withering, even more rapidly once the throat shredding tones of Jimmy Nymoen sear air and song. That initial torrent of barbarous bruising continues throughout but to it guitarists Tobias Gausemel Backe and Steffen Grønneberg spin sinuous sonic enterprise and intrusiveness speared by the predatory call of Kent Nordli’s bass and the quite simply lethal swings of drummer Eivind Kjølstad. It is a maelstrom of energy and rancorous emotion but one unafraid to seed infectious hooks and addictive textures that ebb and flow across the volatile and continually evolving canvas of emotional and physical punishment.
You cannot say that second song These Rats We Deny is a lighter affair but from its first breath it has virulence to its character and smog of noise which just grips from the first second and never releases its hold even as the track throws itself through tortuous scenery and malevolent climates. Bands like Nerv and NVRVD come to mind during the fierce incitement, though it is hard to think of many fuelling their corrosive turbulence with the insidious addiction forging seducing that both tracks carry but These Rats We Deny especially exploits. Finally embalming ears and appetite with the juices of allegiance through a glorious chorus of anthemic band roars, the track and release leaves a big grin on the face and spark for lust in the passions.
You might suspect that Sibiir touched the sweet spot in personal tastes for us and will definitely do so for a great plague of others. These are the first two songs written and recorded by the band and let us hope not the last conjured by the get together of talent, for Swallow & Trap Them is nothing short of violently majestic.
Swallow & Trap Them is available from September 4th via Disiplin Media.
Pete Ringmaster 04/09/2015
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