www.metalsickness.com
The Fantastikol Hole, en voilà un nom bizarre pour un groupe… voilà ce que fut ma réaction quand la promo de Basement Apes Industries m’a proposé ce CD, catalogué comme du grindcore un peu spécial. Un peu spécial c’est peu dire… en matière de trucs bien barrés je croyais avoir entendu beaucoup de choses et pourtant The Fantastikol Hole a réussi à m’étonner, vraiment...
Pour faire court je dirais que c’est du grindcore expérimental. On y enttend beaucoup de choses, des gros riffs, beaucoup d’effets électroniques à commencer par une boite à rythmes déversant des blast beats à tire larigots, pas mal de loops et de samples, et un chant hurlé de grand malade.
Le premier nom qui m’est venu à l’esprit à l’écoute de "Mathematikol Oil" c’est Agoraphobic Noisebleed, surtout à cause de ses rythmiques synthétiques omniprésentes et de son esprit furieusement punk dans son acception la plus anticonformiste qui soit, mais très vite The Fantastikol Hole s’est révélé être autre chose qu’une simple copie du quatuor de chez Relapse.
A y regarder de plus prés, il semblerait que les hauts-garonnais appartiennent en fait à une obédience beaucoup plus metallique qu’Agoraphobic Noisebleed, ainsi ils n’hésitent pas à planter des parties bien thrashy au beau milieu de passages ultra chaotiques, à d’autres moments ils lèvent le pied et alourdissent leurs riffs au point de sonner presque doom. Il arrive aussi que leur chanteur délaisse le registre hardcore hurlé pour des parties death assez graves.
Bien décidé à ne pas se laisser facilement apprivoiser, The Fantastikol Hole s’emploie à brouiller les pistes. Il cherche en permanence l’équilibre dans les extrêmes, maniant de manière déconcertante aussi bien la mélodie que la dissonance, le silence que les déluges de décibels. On passe du gros riff brut de décoffrage, à l’ambiant, du noisecore furieux au solo thrash, des rafales de tempos synthétiques à plus de 150 bpm au martèlement lourd d’un batteur bien humain lui…
En fin de compte on se trouve devant un disque complètement inclassable, aussi extrême, alambiqué et pernicieux que les albums d’Agoraphobic Noisebleed mais nettement plus fouillé et surtout bien plus lisible. Les fans de metal ouverts d’esprit devraient donc y trouver de quoi assouvir leur soif d’émotions fortes en particulier grâce à ses gimmicks thrash et à ses breaks dévastateurs.
www.metal-invader.com
If PHANTOMSMASHER sound like GORGOROTH of noise/grind/electronic/psycho metal, then THE FANTASTIKOL HOLE are like CRADLE OF FILTH. Easier to follow, less painful to listen to, I like 'em. In the press release they write that they try to put in the same melting pot Autechre, Neurosis, Bolt Thrower, Slayer, Panasonic, Voivod and Stravinsky(!!!), and I think they made it. Inspired riffage, sometimes dooming, sometimes thrashing, sometimes rocking, crazy loops, screaming vocals and a "techical" drum machine create a fine atmosphere, that never gets boring. They manage to combine all these different elements and prove that their music is made on purpose and not by accident. "Mathematical oil" reminds me of good times I had with releases like the DATACLAST vs. THE EARWIGS split or with the first album from ATOMSMASHER. They also have brilliant songs that you can actually remember through this whole mess, like "I means die" and "Rock and die, suffer and roll". But for their sake I hope that they believe in what they do, otherwise they will fail. Plus, if I realize that they are making music just to impress, I will be the first to give them the coffin.
www.ventricolution.net
Retrieving pure enjoyment and fulfilment from an album can be quite a painstaking task. Depending on which form it assumes, la raison d’être of any artistic output usually eludes whoever sees fit to, misguidedly, apprehend its whole through a small number of forced incursions through its paths. Clearly, those who jest in fashionable and exuberant attires that only serve to mask a pulsating lack of essence can be reasonably understood through the aforementioned method, but anyone else that instead prefers to bury an intricate message in layer upon layer of schizophrenic a-tonal codes might encounter serious difficulties in the transmission of relevant thoughts.
Such is the case with The Fantastikol Hole, a foursome of deranged Frenchmen with little to no interest in providing broadened aural scenarios painted in lush and calming tones. Instead, The Mathematikol Oil dwells in a realm where angularity and periodicity are the defining components in the formation of intelligible thought. The omnipresent confusion and seemingly chaotic sequence of musical events have a foundational justification in the purposefully fractured musical personality of this band, which comes across as extremely kaleidoscopic if viewed in its entirety.
Per example, after a rather unseemly introduction, “Karst” sets in, delivering an odd concoction of Meshuggah, Mithras and Scarve played over what seems to be the strangest artificial beat I have ever listened to. Right afterwards, an all-out deranged attack of Carnival In Coal/Genghis Tron-ian proportions ensues in the form of “Dekaÿo”, meshing high-pitched hardcore vocalisations with purely demented riffs that seem to come from all over the place. Now, while some of the riffs are pretty ‘easy’ to swallow and extremely alluring, others assume purposefully complicated forms that have the always disturbing ability to force one to immediately experience the track again, in order not to miss one’s focal point.
This excessive and quasi-burlesque lack of focus is sure to bring about some dissent for the band, but I have to concede that it functions marvellously as a provocative affirmation and, at times, surprisingly good on a more aesthetical basis. This almost dual approach is a secant to the short-but-intensely-lived songs usually in cahoots with grindcore, for it revives the sheer ferocity and restlessness of said genre, as well as its deceptively abridged shapes. Aesthetically, it swings to and fro between elaborately enticing brutality and mind-torturing confusion, usually fusing the two in a seemingly uncoordinated fashion that provides sufficient amounts of serious entertainment.
However, the pleasurable outlook it assumes when experienced anew is not cumulative, which inevitably results in noticeably decreasing returns on the utility derived from the process of absorption. This translates into the condescending and paternalist advice: “to be consumed moderately and with responsibility”. In fact, it works very much like getting wasted: the first few drinks get you started and remove some of the weight impending over your brain, but the last two eventually bring you down and turn the inside of your cranium into a gelatinous blob. All in all, a damnably interesting experience.
Such is the case with The Fantastikol Hole, a foursome of deranged Frenchmen with little to no interest in providing broadened aural scenarios painted in lush and calming tones. Instead, The Mathematikol Oil dwells in a realm where angularity and periodicity are the defining components in the formation of intelligible thought. The omnipresent confusion and seemingly chaotic sequence of musical events have a foundational justification in the purposefully fractured musical personality of this band, which comes across as extremely kaleidoscopic if viewed in its entirety.
Per example, after a rather unseemly introduction, “Karst” sets in, delivering an odd concoction of Meshuggah, Mithras and Scarve played over what seems to be the strangest artificial beat I have ever listened to. Right afterwards, an all-out deranged attack of Carnival In Coal/Genghis Tron-ian proportions ensues in the form of “Dekaÿo”, meshing high-pitched hardcore vocalisations with purely demented riffs that seem to come from all over the place. Now, while some of the riffs are pretty ‘easy’ to swallow and extremely alluring, others assume purposefully complicated forms that have the always disturbing ability to force one to immediately experience the track again, in order not to miss one’s focal point.
This excessive and quasi-burlesque lack of focus is sure to bring about some dissent for the band, but I have to concede that it functions marvellously as a provocative affirmation and, at times, surprisingly good on a more aesthetical basis. This almost dual approach is a secant to the short-but-intensely-lived songs usually in cahoots with grindcore, for it revives the sheer ferocity and restlessness of said genre, as well as its deceptively abridged shapes. Aesthetically, it swings to and fro between elaborately enticing brutality and mind-torturing confusion, usually fusing the two in a seemingly uncoordinated fashion that provides sufficient amounts of serious entertainment.
However, the pleasurable outlook it assumes when experienced anew is not cumulative, which inevitably results in noticeably decreasing returns on the utility derived from the process of absorption. This translates into the condescending and paternalist advice: “to be consumed moderately and with responsibility”. In fact, it works very much like getting wasted: the first few drinks get you started and remove some of the weight impending over your brain, but the last two eventually bring you down and turn the inside of your cranium into a gelatinous blob. All in all, a damnably interesting experience.
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