(02 Mar 2011)
I've heard many things about this release, ranging from it being "Slam Death Metal for those who hate Slam Death Metal", to it being "absolute crap", to "once incredibly popular, but ultimately overrated". This meant that, on the one hand, I was expecting an absolute piece of crap, while on the other I was expecting an underrated overrated album (trust me, that does make sense). As I listened Planishpærium for the first time, I simultaneously awaited boredom and being pleasantly surprised. I was pleasantly surprised.
This is 25 minutes of extremely heavy, frantic, imaginative and fun Slam Death Metal with pretentious lyrics (and only rarely if ever do I criticize something based on its pretentiousness), but even the lyrics are forgivable since they're delivered in a virtually incomprehensible fashion. Wormed's music is an incredibly rhythmic and confusion shower of awesome riffs, with a few more "experimental" little details thrown in. It's also up there with Destroy Erase Improve and Organic Hallucinosis as one of the heaviest albums I know.
The listening experience is like zapping through channels, in the way that you might be able to link all the different sections of shows you've seen and in the fact that it is fun to zap through channels. Ultimately, you know that what you've just seen is random and makes no sense whatsoever in terms of plot, just like the songs here are loads of fun, but make no sense structurally. The songs do not develop at all what comes to dynamics: there are stops thrown in, but that's the only thing that breaks up this constant onslaught of riffs and vocalizations.
If you look variety, look away. There are a few little touches that go into more experimental territory, but they're just a little bit of icing on the cake. I was not supposed to like Planisphærium: it is extremely one-dimensional, makes no sense and has been previously been considered great by other sources. But, well, This debut is soaked with originality throughout, and, frankly, it deserves a good rating.
Standout tracks:
Tunnel Of Ions
Ylem
Pulses in Rhombus Forms
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