Duobetic Homunkulus do not give a flying fuck about genres. They make two different genres fit together, if they want to. They fluently slide from one style to another. Or rather, they crash from one style to another, because the changes often happen so suddenly. The band also mix seriousness and humour. I never find this kind of manners of an approach easy to digest, and Duobetic Homunkulus (DH from now on) are no exception.

DH appear on Archaic Metallurgy due to the fact that their backbone is metal music. Death metal in grinding and technical forms are the main contents of DH's approach towards lunacy. Wokis the guitarist/vocalist is known for his warped works in !T.O.O.H.!, and surely he does not let a listener lightly on this 23 minute ride. Death metal is accompanied or mutated by jazz, pop, prog, folk, industrial ad brass music styles. It sounds like a mixture of Mr. Bungle, Gorguts and Deep Turtle, for the lack of better knowledge. The feelings vary from wacky to serious, and from dramatic to vicious. The vocals are growled for a big part and accompanied by cleaner voices, and they are very theatrical. In a word, insane. The music fits with the artwork perfectly. It conjures images of some kind of a art movie / silent movie (Chaplin especially) / animation mongrel.

I often find this kind of approaches more like stupid alloys of varying musical styles. Usually they sound like they are made without any sense (is sense needed in this kind of approaches, though?), to just make it sound warped, and they never manage in that task. That way, the results are, time after time, mere shit. For DH's merit I have to admit, that they have interesting twists and turns in their songs. And they songs sound like songs, not just a mish-mash of bits and parts. You can hear the guys want to make this kind of stuff, and also have skills to succeed in their journey. And yep, this is a duo.

Sound-wise this is okay. It's raw-ish in nature. Drum machine (or samples) was utilized, but even with it, the production is good and clear enough for a cheaply recorded release. The digipak is different I've ever seen: It has three panels, that can be opened. Plus, the CD includes mp3's from both guys and a couple of live video clips. Both thumbs up for the effort and at least one thumb up for the result.

If you want an interesting piece of music with metal as its backbone, then this, DH's sophomore release after the debut demo, is one thing to inspect. Believe me, though, that this one isn't an easy bastard (the score is thereabouts... Take or leave some depending on your musical interests)!

Rating: 7 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
08/19/2013 19:39