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Mere seconds into 85-second opener The Oracle Of Nassau it becomes plain that Pyrrhon are not bothered about courting those who like their extreme metal neatly pinned to a Pro-Tools grid.
As with recent albums by Gorguts and Portal, The Mother Of Virtues is hewn from the stuff of nightmares, its chaotic gait and devotion to dissonance and deviance ensuring that, at times, it barely sounds like a metal album at all. The excruciating unease that oozes from every sonic pore during the meandering sludge of White Flag and Eternity In A Breath owes as much to Bauhaus, Neurosis and Dead Kennedys as it does to Morbid Angel, and yet that all-important atmosphere of blasphemous rage is here in abundance too.
The most concise song here, Sleeper Agent, begins with a hypnotic tribal thud before disintegrating into a maelstrom of repugnant discord. In contrast, Invisible Injury is a sustained blur of third-eye blasting and spittle-flecked confusion – a wince-inducing belch of acrid noise, direct from Chthulu’s knotted colon. These are sick, sick men and this is a masterful mission statement.
