Thantifaxath - Hive Mind Narcosis

Angry Metal Guy

Ignorance, superstition, fear. These characterize the prevailing attitude of the religious towards the supernatural, critiqued in Goya’s Witches’ Flight. His depiction of the frightening with pervasive touches of the satirical presents a dichotomy: a horrifying danger, but one that’s not really there.¹ Or is it? In choosing Witches’ Flight to represent their second full-length, Hive Mind Narcosis, Thantifaxath demonstrate the contradiction they express through the music. They describe this as “two levels working in dichotomy[…] On one level there’s a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance.” Bereft of a lyric sheet in the face of noisy, dissonant black metal, one must decide for themselves what lies at the core. One thing is for certain, though: Hive Mind Narcosis sets out to confront and frighten its listener, and it succeeds.

Thantifaxath have never been accessible and easy listening, but here they seem to have turned a corner into both a clarifying and an intensifying of their sound. Setting aside much of the noise influences that characterized their earlier work, they now sharpen their dissonant death edge, and sound somewhat like Portal, if Portal were accessible, with a crisper production, and forward, barbed vocals. Lurching riffs and infinitely escalating guitar scales decorate the restlessly beating, rolling percussion, bringing songs to points of unbearable tension. This tension is never really released, rather, Thantifaxath prefer to shift it into another form, turning anxiety-inducing climbs and ringing dissonance into equally unsettling drawn-out notes, or suffocating blastbeat density. There is no escape for the listener. Not even in instrumental “Blissful Self-Disassembly,” whose spacey synth and distorted samples plant unease before the creeping chords enter the frame. Hive Mind Narcosis is forty-seven minutes of choking insanity.

Hive Mind Narcosis by Thantifaxath

In the spirit of incongruence borne out by the music and its concept, the album is never one thing. Tempos are crawlingly slow, and then suddenly aren’t (“Solar Witch”); confusing, and suddenly straightforwardly blistering (“The Lost Wisdom of Wolves”); uncomfortably off-beat, and suddenly dramatically emphatic (“Hungry Ghosts”). Sometimes, a strange tunefulness sneaks in (“Surgical Utopian Love,” “The Lost…,” “Burning Kingdom of Now,” “Mind of the Sun”). Sometimes a shivering atmosphere shrouds, making eerie plucks and tremolos echo (“Surgical…,” “Burning Kingdom of Now,” “Hungry Ghosts”). Hive Mind Narcosis is beautiful (“Surgical…,” “Blissful…”) and it is ugly (“Solar Witch,” “Burning…,” “Mind of the Sun”). If it is one thing consistently, it is disquieting. Creepy scales (“Surgical…” “The Lost…,” “Burning…”) and muffled, garbled vocal lines (“Surgical…,” “Hungry Ghosts,” “Blissful…”) ramp up the unease. In discordant concert with the aforementioned prevailing toss and turn of ascending guitars and uneasy percussion, the music becomes mesmerizing. And well-titled. As many disharmonic elements combine into a weird, stupor-inducing consonance.

Herein lies the magic of Hive Mind Narcosis, and it’s something many dissonant and extreme metal albums fall short at. It may be harsh, apparently fickle, and changeable, but it has a cohesion that resonates with contradictory harmony. Actual harmony too, not only concordance. That is the contradiction and that is the beauty. The more you hear, the more it convinces you of its dichotomous singularity. “Solar Witch” confronts with grimness at the album’s opening, as do its successors. But even so, there’s something alluring about them all. And by the time one has reached the spiraling denouement of “Hungry Ghosts” and entered the nightmarish ambience of “Blissful…” Hive Mind Narcosis will have fully taken over. As mentioned, Thantifaxath have stripped well-nigh all of the noise and fuzz of their sound clean away, amplifying the music’s power. It is an intense listen, but a gripping one. One that holds true to its frightening madness up to the last, as “Mind…” ends with startling abruptness.

If this review seems to present conflicting sentiments, that’s the influence of Hive Mind Narcosis. It is an intentionally antipathetic work of direful artistry. And in their embracing of a more pointed aggression, deeper atmosphere, and wilder tone, Thantifaxath demonstrate that they are a force to be reckoned with. However you end up interpret the polarities, make sure you hear them for yourself.

Rating: Great
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Dark Descent Records
Websites: bandcamp.com/album/hive-mind-narcosis | facebook.com/ThantifaxathOfficial
Releases Worldwide: June 2nd, 2023

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