Acrosome – Dementia Praecox

posted by Zamo on July 31, 2011

Acrosome, formed, surrounded by two “shining souls” ( D.A and D.Y ) and contrary to most people’s expectations, they’re from a zone that many people consider exotic when it comes to extreme metal. However, Turkey (their former country, yes), has managed to surprise me with one of the darkest and most brutal bands of depressive/ extreme black metal. ( beside Acrosome, i should also remind you of Cragataska, Sociopath, Zenith Maudlin, Valefor, The Sarcophagus).

Acrosome showed up online in 2010, but the official release of the mini-cd called “Dementia Praecox” happened in May 2011 through the label Dusktone.






The first insight for the album, without even listening to it will be from the name of Acrosomes MCD. Dementia praecox ( premature dementia or precocious madness ) refers to a chronic, deteriorating psychopathic disorder, a specific disease concept that implies incurable, unexplained madness.

The album consists in shorter track lengths, shorter than we’re used with but this is not necessary a bad thing. It starts with an intro of 2 minutes “Onsoz”, a pretty typical and often encountered intro; Dark, cold and atmospheric, supported by a very sinister spoken vocal part. The passage that leads to the part of extreme metal is made directly from the end of the intro to the second song, “Farkindalik Reaksiyonu”, a track that has all the elements of DSBM: moving screams, not too fast drums, but pretty heavy and a continuous passage of keys that create a grim and gloomy atmosphere. The bad part in this story is that the track is shorter than the intro and I mean around 2 minutes.

The album tends to be a very dark one, it creates an image that you usually see (if you have the luck or the bad luck, depends on how you see the things..) in a sanatorium. “Dementia praecox” is full of bizarre structures, ambiental black metal, a combination of cold, atmospheric passages and chaotic, ravishing ones, with hard riffs and slow ones as well. ( especially in  Reaksiyonel Idea, a track that you can easily classify as funeral doom) and vocals similar to Silencer (though, not that extreme). The emphasis is put on this side of ‘ behavioural disorder ‘, mental disease, and this thing can be seen in the parts that are dominated by that vocal type mentioned earlier.

… a well made prescription for an album with the name of “Dementia praecox”.

I would also have a minor minus to add to this mini CD, at the production part, it has a pretty clean production quality to it, but some tracks give the impression that they’re only small fragments and because of this the passage from one track to another is sometimes made quite sharply. It gives you the impression that  it’s a raw material that needs to be finished. The songs that are based on spoken passages and an ambiental black metal, “Önsöz”, “DP 1898″, “Doktora”, tent to “cut” the album from its roots, the depressive metal one. In the end I don’t think that even half of the album is pure depressive black metal, the rest is focused on the cold atmospheric parts.

All in all, Dementia Praecox is far from a bad album and is definitely worth checking out.


Rating : 7.5 / 10


Tracklist:

1. Onsoz

2. Farkindalik Reaksiyonu

3. DP 1898

4. Doktora

5. Reaksiyonel Idea

6. Atenor

7. Acrosome

8. Sonsoz


Physical review copy of this release provided by:
Dusktone Records.


References:

www.dusktone.eu

www.myspace.com/acrosometr