Style: avant-garde black metal, hardcore (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ὁπλίτης, Car Bomb, Blut Aus Nord, Plebeian Grandstand, Frontierer
Country: China
Release date: 7 March 2025
What is it with one-man avant-garde metal acts and creating new pseudonyms for seemingly every release? Well I have a theory: in the metal underground obscurity is gold, and there’s nothing worse than being perceived as even somewhat successful or popular. A band may manage to put out a few albums before they get noticed—say, to have more than 1,000 monthly listeners—but once enough quality music is released it’s only a matter of time until success comes beating down your door. For any mysterious avant-garde auteur of black metal mayhem, success may as well be the grim reaper. So when multi-instrumentalist J.L.’s Ὁπλίτης—that’s Hoplite(s) if you aren’t in the know—saw success with last year’s Παραμαινομένη, it was all but guaranteed that J.L. would reemerge underneath a new and unknown moniker; enter Smiqra with Rɡyaɡ̇dźé!.
Picking up right where Παραμαινομένη left off, Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! relentlessly pounds the listener with a bristling intensity unmatched by any pure black metal or hardcore act and finds in the combination of its muses unplumbed caverns of sonic exploration. Gone is the mysticism that gave Παραμαινομένη its subtle edge, and in its place is an explosive fury. Drums take center stage, discontent to ever sit in one place for more than a few seconds and constantly shifting tactus and tempo in a similar manner to fellow hardcore-tinged metallers Car Bomb. Done less tactfully, such a persistent style of metal could grow tiresome, but Smiqra is too quick on its feet for me to ever get bored of any singular riff.
To further spice up its already overflowing pot of influences, Smiqra adds elements of jazz in the form of frenetic saxophone and synthesizer solos and breakcore with a few entirely too short moments of amen break sampling. It’s clear that even though J.L. is producing avant-garde black metal, he isn’t afraid to infuse a little lightheartedness into the mix. This sort of unabashed creative expression keeps the album fresh, particularly as it extends into its back half and starts drawing up old motifs.
The highlight of Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! is undoubtedly the seamless multi-track epic (although this could really be used to describe the entire album) that begins with “Imaginary Minotaurian academia” and ends with the ten-minute closer “qa-si-re-u!”. The epic sees Smiqra pave its way from hypnotic tribal rhythms replete with vocal ostinatos bound to get stuck in your head (“Is music for oxen?”) to meaty djent breakdowns that offer a sublime release from the album’s relentless attack. Because the individual tracks are so quick, never handling an idea for more than a few moments, and because most tracks seamlessly transition into the next, it’s easy to get washed away in the deluge of sound and ride Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! all the way to the bottom.
While a relentless approach served Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! well for its songwriting, the same approach was applied to its production to varying effect. Put simply, this album is loud, and the drums are the culprit. Each drum hit is pushed to the edge of distortion, to the point that it feels like you’re the one playing the drums, each strike rattling your very own bones. When other instruments join the fray, they have to compete with the percussion, and everything gets louder as a result. On one hand, this makes the album feel more real, and it may be a truer realization of J.L.’s artistic vision. But on the other hand, I can’t help but wonder how much more listenable the album could have been had it let off the gas. Perhaps it’s trite to lob production complaints at one-man black metal acts, but I truly feel a subtler hand on the gain knob could have gone a long way in increasing Rɡyaɡ̇dźé!’s listenability.
If J.L.’s plan is to remain obscure, releasing albums as good as Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! is certainly not the way to do it. While it doesn’t have the same mystic quality that made me really fall in love with Παραμαινομένη, Rɡyaɡ̇dźé!’s raw intensity is equally enticing and all but ensures that the album will continue to be remembered in J.L.’s ever-growing discography.
Recommended tracks: qa-si-re-u!
You may also like: Artificial Brain, Thantifaxath, Dodecahedron, Hebephrenique, Jute Gyte, Serpent Column, Red Rot, A.M.E.N., Theophonos
Final verdict: 8/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Metal-Archives page
Label: independent
Smiqra is:
– J.L. (everything)
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