Uta is back!
I was
pretty shaken by Uta Plotkin’s departure from Witch Mountain almost
ten years ago. I guess I’m fine now, it’s been a while, come on
Tony! After leaving the Portland doom band, she became a yoga teacher
but didn’t do a lot musically (at least stuff that’s been
released) but I was glad to learn that she was back with a new band.
Teratorns is the second extended play by Lividus and it bangs hard.
Plotkin’s minimal use of harsh vocals in Witch Mountain (see the albums South of Salem or Cauldron of the Wild) was enjoyable even though I really loved her clean ones. They have a bigger spotlight here and it doesn’t disappoint. The second track “The Witness” is an even mix of gnarly slicing harsh vocals and high pitched powerful cleans and it works well, I was happy to hear her amazing voice again. Musically, we’re somewhere else from Witch Mountain, it’s quite interesting too. Drummer Pierce Williams ( Ænigmatum, Skeletal Remains, Torture Rack...) and guitarist Rob Shaffer (Dark Castle, Lord Dying...) are in the lineup and they’re both super talented musicians adding their influences to the fold. I’d say that this is some sort of avant garde progressive death/thrash/extreme metal, there’s dissonance, fast death metal riffs (check out the opener “Tis’forundal”) and intense blastbeats. All this is intertwined with Plotkin’ fantastic use of layered vocals singing dark poetic lyrics. The three tracks are all fairly short and fast and doesn’t mess around. The band sorts of reminds me of Voivod in how peculiar they are.
Lividus are able to
combine dissonance, darkness and experimental ideas with a melodic
approach, it’s surprising and takes a few interesting turns
throughout the eleven minutes duration of this release that I’ve
put on repeat, it’s quite good and I’m stoked to hear what
they’ll do next.
Bandcamp
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