Behind METHADRONE one will find Randi Stokes and Craig Pillard, whereas the latter one might be known from his work in Incantation. But with death metal both ones don’t have anything to do with anymore…
This becomes apparent in the basic instrumentation: both gents play bass, added with a session guitarist, wafting keyboard sounds and a drum computer, but without any singing. And what comes out? Something that reminds me of times 15 years back when British bands like Godflesh, Pitch Shifter and Scorn had a similar sound. On Retrogression one will find solemn, sometimes monotonously appearing, strongly distorted noise with long running tones and melodies, interspersed with invidious bass lines and always again drifting into crazy fields. That’s definitely very, very darksome stuff.
Both basses create harsh and extremely wide soundscapes, within distorted and layering tones building up a staggering atmosphere. The guitar gets used just for melodies and hooks, not as a rhythm instrument, while the drum computer seems to work with a pure- or slave-state button. And again, killing leisureliness is trump…
Those, who take much pleasure in depressively aggressive music, should be interested in METHADRONE. I like it, but I cannot conceal that especially songs such as Despondency, Transient Release and the title track sound very much like the above mentioned examples. Structures and melodies are sometimes absolutely identical. METHADRONE just consequently do it without singing. If that doesn’t matter one will get non-commercial, uncompromising music. That’s something worth it.