Dischordia – Triptych

Artist: Dischordia

Album Title: Triptych

Label: Transcending Obscurity Records

Date of Release: 29 April 2022

Sometime, just sometimes, I will admit to being defeated by an album, or a band. It takes a lot more than it used to, that’s for sure. But it happens occasionally to this day, and will, no doubt, happen again until the day I stop listening to music. Based on the quality of music that has emanated from the Transcending Obscurity stable in the last year or so, I am left with no alternative but to take a listen to everything that they present via their promo platform. The most recent offering is for a band called Dischordia and their third full-length album entitled ‘Triptych’.

Hailing from Oklahoma in the US, Dischordia have been in operation since around 2010 and they are a trio comprised of bassist/vocalist Josh Turner, guitarist Keeno (who also offers additional vocals), and drummer Josh Fallin. It is clear that the trio know what they are trying to achieve and for a band so few in numbers, the sound they make is really quite impressive in itself. Theirs is a heavy, uncompromising, complex, and occasionally avant-garde-sounding affair, meaning that you never quite know what’s going to hit you next. The performances across the three musicians are all very commendable, and it takes great skill to be able to pull off some of the things that they do.

However, with a name like Dischordia, it will come as little surprise to learn that the band have a penchant for making music that’s dissonant and unfriendly, deliberately shunning anything that might be misconstrued as welcoming, friendly, or memorable if I’m honest. I’ve listened intently, even putting on the big headphones in the hope that something will click or at least stick. But I can’t make it happen, as much as I try to force things. At the end of the day, I need something other than complexity and downright nastiness. And, at 56 minutes in duration, there’s simply too much of it.

There will be a lot of you out there who will vehemently disagree whilst challenging my heavy metal credentials in the process. I accept that and I’m wise to it. So, for those of you who want it, I’m happy to help explain why ‘Triptych’ might be a band for you, even if they are not for me.

Well, for starters, the production of this record is very solid, ensuring that every string pluck, every twisted riff, every snare strike, and everything else in between can be heard with sufficient clarity without the sound being sterile. Despite the clarity, particularly noticeable with the fleet-footed bass playing, the music retains some grit and nastiness befitting it. And Josh Turner’s deep guttural growls are just plain nasty in a good way.

Then there’s the complete absence of any niceties like a gentle intro, as the trio immediately launch into their uncomfortable, mind-boggling attack from the first second. As such, ‘Minds Of Dust’ blasts out of nowhere with a savage yet technically adept sonic battery. The bass never stops, whilst the drumming is dextrous and accomplished, equally comfortable with belting out the blasts, or delivering something altogether more nuanced. But at no point in this track is there anything I can latch on to and actually enjoy. I admire what I am listening to, but that’s not enough to lure me back for repeated listens for fun. A vague melody, a moment of stubborn groove…nope, that ain’t happening here, and you have to respect Dischordia for sticking to their guns so intently. The closest we get to any of that is in the closing moments as the pace is deliberately slowed to a crawl.

I will concede to finding some of the more overt experimentation rather intriguing within some of the tracks, especially as I genuinely wasn’t expecting much of it. One such example would be the extremely minimalist mid-section to ‘Bodies Of Ash’ which sees a flute delivering what appears to be a rather whimsical melody over a repetitive couple of muted piano notes. But such is the way in which the two collide alongside a few other vague sounds, there’s nothing harmonious about it. Instead, almost certainly deliberately, the result is unsettling and unnerving, making me fully realise just how unhinged this music truly is.

‘Spirits Of Dirt’ is a similar beast in many respects, abandoning the heaviness early on in favour of a repetitive minimalist soundscape that incorporates numerous gentle sounds but in a way that causes a little more confusion, as well as a strange sense of twisted foreboding – it’s like the sounds that might emanate from the cot mobile of a demented baby in a horror-film. It doesn’t last as long, but it still creates a creepy feel to the song, one that’s explored throughout to a greater or lesser extent.

The flute makes a reappearance within the mammoth eight-minute ‘The Carriage’ which does offer some further respite from the dissonant cacophony that’s the favoured feeding ground of Dischordia. The pace is also a lot slower for large portions of the track, leading to a feeling that I’m being run over, very slowly, by a stinking, dirty steamroller. When all is said and done, it is probably my favourite track on ‘Triptych’, but given my general feelings towards this album, that’s not saying a lot.

However, let’s be clear on this once more – I don’t hate ‘Triptych’, and neither do I think it is a record that contains bad music. It certainly doesn’t, and as I’ve said before, if you’re a fan of deliberately ugly, heavy music, you really must check it out because it’ll probably knock your socks off. For my personal tastes though, I cannot warm to it. Dischordia have created a record in’Triptych’ that’s just a little too avant-garde, and a little too uncomfortably dissonant for me. I’ll leave the rest of you to indulge yourselves, whilst I lay in a darkened room with a cold flannel to bathe my poor head.

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