With a back story as cinematic as the sounds and suggestiveness conjured, reading between its lines it seems that SECTLINEFOR has been a seed and adventure long time in the making for its creator Pavel Stepanov aka Piton, the guitarist of progressive synthetic death metallers Ygodeh. It is a project as far away from that impressive proposition as you can imagine and one which with debut album Anorexic Insect seriously ignites the imagination.
London based, SECTLINEFOR’s sound is tagged as cinematic neo-metal though no precise description can be made for the unique and striking avant-garde lined adventure it takes the listener on. With fellow Ygodeh member in bassist Aal and vocalist/lyricist Jared alongside, Piton creates the darkest tales with Anorexic Insect, its series of haunting nightmares as seductively engaging as they are boldly deranged. Musically the album persistently infests body and psyche whilst the vocals of Jared are pure magnetism with their winy prowess.
It all begins with the album’s title track, its low key start of synths and atmospheric theatre instinctive coaxing for the listener swiftly accentuated by the vocal gurning of Jared. Beats soberly pulsate whilst Aal’s bass probes the senses, drama fuelling every second and note especially as the track subsequently erupts with muscular psychosis. As across the whole release, there is a touch of Trepalium, 6:33, and Cardiacs to its off kilter exploits; of Stump too with Jared’s vocal presence something closely akin to Mick Lynch of that band, but as suggested earlier, each is a flavour suggested merely hinting at what is on offer from band and album.
The outstanding start continues with The Aftertaste of Soap. Its initial industrial lure is soon a more forceful proposition preying on the senses, at times stalking ears and in other moments making bolder statements of intent as the song ebbs and flows in intensity. Symphonic essences bring greater evocatively suggestive spicing to the challenge while rhythms offer an infectiously energetic agitation as vocals and melodies entwine the harsher attributes of the compelling encounter.
As invasively dark as everything is, My Neighbour was on TV explores an even more sinister landscape next. Throughout the album, there is a suffocating intimacy in atmosphere and emotion just like the grisliness which lies at the heart of folk and fairy tales and in the third track it devours ears and thoughts, exciting each simultaneously before Birthmark Photograph uncages its own psychotic bedlam and electronic flirtation in a bed of metallic causticity. It is glorious stuff, like the album a proposition which will either work for you or not but if it does, SECTLINEFOR provide manna for the senses and indeed imagination.
Anorexic Insect is a fusion of creative beauty and unhinged dynamics which borders on alchemy and no more potent than in the bewitching addled embrace of Orange Soda and in turn the inventively provocative haywire that is Checkmate. Both songs twist and turn with certifiable imagination and relish and each presents in their individual ways a tapestry of skilfully woven adventure and incitement upon which Jared roars with vocal meshuga, a creative abnormality perfectly matched by the composing and craft of Piton and the throbbing stimulus of Aal.
Through the grand drama of Congratulations and the poetic grace of Gag Reflex of Stray Dogs, there is no let-up in unpredictable theatre and pleasure; each a web of inventive deceit and captivation gleefully twisting the listener this way and that. I’m Not Having That Much Fun Anymore equally exposes ears to raw insanity and imagination at its nerviest while the outstanding Little Handjobs strokes an already inflamed appetite for the album with hectic tenacity and hyperactive energy.
Finished off by the raw Lovecraftian instrumental trespasses of The Door and The Secret Behind, this certainly no warm Witch and The Wardrobe like fantasy, Anorexic Insect is a rare and exhilarating proposition. As mentioned some will run from its inner terrors and emotional turmoil but those with instinctive adventure in their tastes will be rewarded with one of the early true treats of 2017.
Anorexic Insect is out now @ https://sectlinefor.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pg/sectlinefor/
Pete RingMaster 01/03/2017
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
Do the same things still drive the band when it was fresh-faced or have they evolved over time?
although it still seems to be exciting interest and radio play etc. as if it had been released just a month or two ago; that may be a characteristic of the internet age, people come across this stuff online every day and for them it’s new and fresh. Grieve, the single off the album, is still getting a lot of radio play, especially in the States, as are All and Side with Satan.
It is not easy for any new band to make an impact regionally let alone nationally and further afield. How have you found it? Are there the opportunities to make a mark if the drive is there for new bands?
Bruce Lawn starts the album off and according to the press release sees “Seemingly disparate musical fragments converge into a unified theme as catchy and uncomfortable as gonorrhoea. It dissolves as quickly as it manifests into a visceral aural soup, crashing into an overtly sexual Transylvanian organ punch.” It opens with a handful of lusty seconds of anthemic sax bursts and handclaps before flinging a host of discord kissed sounds made up of melodic and sonic tweaks. Already thoughts are conjuring a picnic in a thirties freak show, an abundance of off-kilter beauty providing an embrace of joy with sorrowful undertones. As with every track, and no matter the hints given by the band musically and in word, each listen sends the imagination down a new avenue of lively and shadowed adventure, though ones maybe not quite as disturbed or avant-garde as the ideas in the minds bringing the piece to ears. Band and song continue to ‘meander’ and spin new detours, a few of them Essential Logic like, as it drifts into an increasingly sinister haunting; coming out the other side with aural face paint smudged and mental coherence askew.
Opener Node cups ears in a gentle yet emotive touch of keys, Tommy Rogers’ fingers and voice swiftly stroking ears and imagination even before melodies broaden and their elegance mesmerises. The melancholic air of the song has its own ethereal light and hope, album and band immersing the listener into the realm of album and story with sublime ease, even adding Queen-esque flames of epic tones and sonic grandeur to striking effect. It is a potently enticing start which slips into the theatrical and magnetic embrace of The Coma Machine. Many have compared the album and some of its textures and flavours to bands like Dream Theater yet aside from the unavoidable uniqueness of BTBAM, here and often across the album Australian progressive metallers Voyager nudge thoughts. The track ebbs and flow in energy and rousing intensity as it explores its and the story’s depths, and is just as enthralling as it writhes with majestic imagination, whether in a gentle hug of a croon or roaring with aggression and passion.
The album, which sees Scott accompanied by a plethora of skilled and inventive talent, opens with Gibbles and a distant wistful melody. The ear is soon under the temptation of dark double bass slaps and bass clarinet seduction though; they in turn courted by a web of brass teasing. A jazzy air soon takes on an exotic flavour through guitar and sax, excited elements entwining for a sultry and mouth-watering dance through Arabian avenues and more Caribbean spiced festivity. All the time though there is a tempering shadow, an underlying turbulence which brews up a danger with fresh seeds for thoughts to twist and redesign its visual landscape with. The nearer its conclusion the more unravelled the track and its calm becomes as it takes the listener into the sonic distortion and percussive bubbling of Proud to be a Mirkin. The second song also brings a brass fuelled agitation aligned to a sinister electronic stalking of the psyche. It is the stuff of dark dreams, though as hindsight will eventually show, just the start of bigger nightmarish intrusions to come.
attention; a focus soon fed by sonic waves of acidic guitars and the excellent group harmonies we have already become accustomed to. The song is soon holding a bold stride as enticing melodies wrap their temptation around the rhythmic spine of the song whilst rawer rubs of riffing and the creative sonic web crafted by guitarists Drey Pavlovic and Damo Hughes dance with ears and a growing appetite for the rich invention of the song. The track though is a full seduction, the excellent vocals of Jason Moules supported by Hughes and the punch packing beats of drummer Connor Fisher-Atack alongside the rich darker tones of Jemal Malki’s bass equally as impressive and persuasive.