photos by Kristel Boucher
Artifice Dissolves is the searing second album by Quebec death/thrash trio DISSIMULATOR – formed by members of Chthe’ilist, Atramentus, Beyond Creation, Incandescence, and more – now aligned for early October release through their allies at 20 Buck Spin.
With Artifice Dissolves, Montreal’s DISSIMULATOR accelerates beyond the formidable sonic coordinates established by their Lower Form Resistance debut and plunges headlong into a future world where technological hegemony and catastrophic entropy exist in perfect equilibrium. Their jagged sci-fi death/thrash has evolved into an ever more labyrinthine construct, fusing serrated riff matrices and volatile rhythmic architecture into an algorithm-obliterating neural hack.
Artifice Dissolves sees DISSIMULATOR – drummer Phillipe Boucher, bassist Antoine Daigneault, and guitarist/vocalist Claude Leduc – propelling itself like an untethered artificial consciousness recursively rewriting its own code, with each movement revealing another phantasmagorical dimension within the band’s bionic mythology. Razor-wire guitar lines, alien yet familiar, whiplash and intersect at impossible angles whilst the rhythm section drives songs like “Alloyed” and “Neon Metropolis” through perpetual states of intensifying velocity, collapse, and reassembly, creating a surging sense of momentum undeterred by its relentless intricacy.
An awe-inspiring convergence of futuristic world-building and unrestrained, unapologetic technical aggression, Artifice Dissolves is a cyborg hallucination of a civilization wasting away in the sunless gutters of its autonomous megacities, the warped fever dreams of an omniscient God-machine, and the malignant side-effects of its cybernetic enhancements. And beneath the album’s dazzling precision and violent thrust, DISSIMULATOR maintains a timeless human striving for order and transcendence beyond the technological.
The drums on Artifice Dissolves were recorded by Xavier Berthiaume at Productions Tehom. The bulk of the audio, including additional vocals on several tracks by Laurent Bellemare, was recorded by the band, then reamped, mixed, and mastered by Hugues Deslauriers at Roarrrsoundsstudio. The album is completed with artwork by Noah Cutter Meihoff (Ghost, Imperial Triumphant), layout by Audrey Pasquini / Bangs! Studio, and photography by Kristel Boucher. Any fan of Obliveon, Sadus, Voivod, Cryptic Shift, Miscreance, Vektor, Watchtower, Atheist, Hexx, Decapitated, Meshuggah, and Cynic should investigate DISSIMULATOR.
With the incinerating lead track “Alloyed,” Claude Leduc reveals, “‘Alloyed’ is a philosophical musing about Günther Anders’ concept of Promethean shame – the idea that deep down human beings feel inferior or diminished against the perfection of their technological creations. The song highlights the band’s syncopated riffing style chugging in lockstep with the lyrics, which describe this self-alienation metaphorically through the motivations and consequences of undergoing a procedure to become fully cybernetic. It is a reminder that the real danger of our relationship to technology is not that machines will surpass humans, but that humans will lower themselves to machines.”
DISSIMULATOR’s “Alloyed” can now be streamed on Bandcamp HERE and YouTube HERE.
Artifice Dissolves will arrive on LP, CD, and digital platforms on October 2nd. Preorder this elite auditory weaponry at the 20 Buck Spin webshop HERE and Bandcamp HERE.
Additional previews of the record will be deployed over the weeks ahead.
Artifice Dissolves Track Listing:
1. Apophenic Rage
2. Hungry Ghosts
3. Artifice Dissolves
4. Alloyed
5. Proprioceptor
6. Dusk
7. Neon Metropolis
8. Anodyne
9. Robostrobos
DISSIMULATOR:
Phillipe Boucher – drums
Claude Leduc – guitar, vocals
Antoine Daigneault – bass
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