{"id":7118,"date":"2025-08-18T12:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/7118\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T12:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:57:08","slug":"abhorrent-expanse-enter-the-misanthropocene-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/7118\/","title":{"rendered":"Abhorrent Expanse – Enter the Misanthropocene Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"How experimental is too experimental? That\u2019s the question Chicago\u2019s Abhorrent Expanse<\/strong> posits. It\u2019s clear from the title: Enter the Misanthropocene enters to play jazz and fuck shit up, and \u201cBitches Brew\u201d is on its final notes. When the Lord of the Promo Pit designated the quartet as \u201cdeath-drone,\u201d I was intrigued and gobbled up rights. It was clear from the jump that Abhorrent Expanse<\/strong> was not the death metal act with a mammoth guitar tone I had hoped, but an improvisational free jazz quartet that decides to do extreme metal sometimes, with death metal, grindcore, and, yes, drone metal making short-lived appearances. Pushing the boundary between extreme lofty experimentation and outright nonsense, Enter the Misanthropocene is a sophomore effort that will take you to an abstract and uncompromising world \u2013 or straight to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin.<\/p>\n

Abhorrent Expanse<\/strong> has a solid lineup, including caliber from Zebulon Pike<\/strong>, Celestiial<\/strong>, Obsequiae<\/strong>, and The Blight<\/strong> \u2013 even if its sound feels entirely convoluted. Following the controversial debut Gateways to Resplendence, Enter the Misanthropocene is largely the same, but its scope is larger, significantly reducing its drone content in favor of jazzy noodling, grind intensity, sprawling ambiance, and deconstructed death metal jaggedness. The drone that exists within is a short-lived sprawl that pops up periodically, giving a more abstract feel than its predecessor\u2019s \u201cdissodeath meeting drone metal in a dark alley behind the Kmart\u201d vibe. Forty-eight minutes of whiplash-inducing tonal and tempo shifts, off-key twanging, random stoner sprawls, and an undeserved love for improv awaits \u2013 and I need a nap.<\/p>\n

Enter the Misanthropocene by Abhorrent Expanse<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Say it with me: improv is bad. I get the whole avant-garde approach that John Zorn<\/strong> would drool over, that an improvised performance is a \u201cnever see it the same way twice\u201d kind of deal, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s good. As we\u2019ve seen with typically good bands like Neptunian Maximalism<\/strong> or Bunsenburner<\/strong>, relying on group chemistry instead of thoughtful songwriting to create a singular experience hardly pans out \u2013 and Enter the Misanthropocene is no exception. Moments of avant-garde clarity in which the instruments align shine in the twitching obscure grind (title track, \u201cAssail the Density Matrix,\u201d \u201cDissonant Aggressors\u201d), short-lived minimalist drone (\u201cPraise for Chaos,\u201d \u201cDissonant Aggressors,\u201d \u201cAscension Symptom Acceleration\u201d), haunting ritualism (\u201cWaves of Graves\u201d), and ambient calm (\u201cKairos\u201d). Death growls are sparse. Enter the Misanthropocene is so free jazz and avant-garde it forcibly drags nonconsenting listeners into what seems like obscenely high art\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2026Or incompetent musicianship. Much of Abhorrent Expanse<\/strong>\u2019s sound is rooted in utter nonsense, and one that often gets played really fast. While there\u2019s certainly artistic discomfort aplenty to be found on this record, in which I can see some merit (\u201cWaves of Graves,\u201d \u201cDrenched Onyx\u201d), these are scattered moments among what sound like the plonks and twunks of a novice fiddling with a new guitar at Guitar Center. Atonal noodling and off-beat drumming accounts for the majority of its forty-eight minute runtime, sounding entirely random. The drone-doom moments feel off-beat and misaligned (\u201cPraise for Chaos\u201d), some ambient moments are so subtle and minimalist that they just cover John Cage<\/strong>\u2019s 4\u201933\u201d for a bit before eventually becoming audible (\u201cNephilim Disinterred\u201d), and by the end of the ten-minute closer \u201cProstrate Before Chthonic Devourment\u201d you might feel like you\u2019ve been through a prostrate exam.<\/p>\n

The promotion around Abhorrent Expanse<\/strong> relies on similarities to dissonant acts like Portal<\/strong> and Imperial Triumphant<\/strong> \u2013 but in order to do that, they\u2019d actually have to write some songs first. Gateways to Resplendence was challenging and avant-garde but anchored to a respectable degree; Enter the Misanthropocene is a leaf on the wind, being blown by one avant-garde gust to another with no semblance of gravity to save it. Its high-art status is a divisive issue, as the directionless noodling can be seen as either a challenging piece of art or four dudes who don\u2019t know how to play their instruments. But isn\u2019t that the nature of art itself? Abhorrent Expanse<\/strong> holds a mirror to art itself, making us question what is drivel and what is erudite \u2013 through the improvised off-key noodling of someone who has arguably never picked up a guitar before.<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> 1.0\/5.0
DR:<\/strong> 9 | Format Reviewed:<\/strong> 320 kb\/s mp3
Label:<\/strong> Amalgam Music<\/a>
Websites:<\/strong> abhorrentexpanse.bandcamp.com<\/a>
Releases Worldwide:<\/strong> August 15th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How experimental is too experimental? That\u2019s the question Chicago\u2019s Abhorrent Expanse posits. It\u2019s clear from the title: Enter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[7273,1135,7274,7275,7276,7277,7278,7279,7280,7281,7282,18,7283,117,7284,7285,19,7286,17,7287,7288,337,7289,7018,7290,7291,1142,1143,7292,7293],"class_list":{"0":"post-7118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1-0","9":"tag-1135","10":"tag-abhorrent-expanse","11":"tag-amalgam-music","12":"tag-ambient-metal","13":"tag-american-metal","14":"tag-aug25","15":"tag-bunsenburner","16":"tag-celestiial","17":"tag-death-metal","18":"tag-dissonant-death-metal","19":"tag-eire","20":"tag-enter-the-misanthropocene","21":"tag-entertainment","22":"tag-free-jazz","23":"tag-grindcore","24":"tag-ie","25":"tag-imperial-triumphant","26":"tag-ireland","27":"tag-john-cage","28":"tag-john-zorn","29":"tag-music","30":"tag-neptunian-maximalism","31":"tag-noise","32":"tag-obsequiae","33":"tag-portal","34":"tag-review","35":"tag-reviews","36":"tag-the-blight","37":"tag-zebulon-pike"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}