‘A true one-and-done classic, and one that deserves as many celebrations as we can muster.‘
-Jake Walters
Release date: July 19, 2005 | Relapse Records
Where do you go as a band once you’ve released something you might as well never surpass? Death-doom ancestors Disembowelment (often stylized as diSEMBOWELMENT) answered this by walking away from their labor once they bestowed their single full-length album Transcending Into The Peripheral unto the world. In 2005, this album plus a handful of EPs was turned into a restrospective self-titled compilation, which we’re trying to properly highlight for this year’s final ASIR.
Iain Ferguson
There’s a special magic looking back at the days of a genre’s founding. Back when no bands pulled ahead and established the official rules, so musicians only really felt the constraints of their own imagination and budget crafting their take on a developing sound. Today’s topic, Australia’s Disembowelment, is one of my absolute favorite examples of this phenomenon, short-lived as they may have been. Having formed in 1989, they churned out a slew of demoes, and EP, and a full-length’s worth of funereal death/doom metal that, to this very day, still feels shockingly unique before splitting in 1993. A career brief enough that, in 2005, Relapse Records could lump the lion’s share of their work onto the 2-disc self-titled compilation that we have before us now.
But let’s back this up a bit. What is it that makes Disembowelment unique? What makes their singular full-length, Transcendence into the Peripheral one of my absolute favorite metal albums? In short; it’s all about the vibe. Disembowelment wasn’t the first on the scene for death/doom. Bands like Winter, Autopsy, and to a lesser extent Incantation were already trying their own hand at mixing death metal’s heft and disgust with doom metal’s foreboding misery. Disembowelment was similar in approach, but they eschewed evil and gore (mostly) for a more reserved sense of wise mysticism and an embrace of the monolithic yet ambient approach of the still-unsolidified funeral doom genre (Thergothon wouldn’t drop Stream from the Heavens until 1994). There was just something more to their sound, and it hasn’t really been replicated since.
Obviously, the bulk of the Disembowelment compilation is the Transcendence into the Peripheral full-length proper, and that’s where most listeners will (and should) focus. For all its alien production and churning fury, opener “The Tree of Life and Death” hews closer to the norm of death/doom besides some cleaner, yet more bizarre, hanging notes and the dissonant chords of the trudging center of the track. It’s beyond that point, beginning with “Your Prophetic Throne of Ivory” with its clean guitars and haunting, wordless chanted singing, where Transcendence into the Peripheral starts living up to its name. The atmosphere shifts into a more meditative headspace, something beyond the pale of what was typical for the genre.
Of course, Disembowelment does a great job balancing both halves of their equation. “The Spirit of the Tall Hills” introduces itself in shimmering ambience before an eerie guitar progression propels it forward, while “Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores” features a wash of delicate harps before drifting into effect-laden slow leads over fuzzed-out, downtuned chords. “Nightside of Eden” doesn’t even touch on the idea of metal, consisting of acoustics and washed-out electrics as a woman speaks poetry behind the veil of the guitars. Conversely, “Excoriate” is a (relatively) brief scorcher of a death doom track while “A Burial at Ornans” is pure funeral doom dirge until some accelerated drumming towards its back half. The vocals throughout are incomprehensible growls, but even then, a look at the lyric sheets proves Disembowelment wasn’t interested in the gory business of death metal as usual. They were on to something more otherworldly and high-minded, and the way they make this bleed through the lyrics and the music equally is a major achievement.
Granted, there’s more to the Disembowelment compilation than just their full-length, and the additional tracks do prove an intriguing insight into how the band’s vision developed. The Dusk EP is entirely built of songs that would be re-recorded for Transcendence…, but in rougher form, at higher tempos, and stripped of the most unusual elements of the full-length versions. Meanwhile, the mix on the demo tracks proves a little rougher to revisit, but hearing larval versions of “Excoriate”, titled in much more death-metal fashion as “Extracted Nails” here, is a cool time capsule of a band finding their footing in a fresh genre, without many peers to speak of influencing them one way or another.
For all the promise of their brief existence, Disembowelment called it quits in 1993. A few members did get back into the genre by way of the band Inverloch, which also put out an EP and a full-length before falling into relative silence. Of course, death/doom and funeral doom would move on and develop, but to this day so many of my favorites in either genre can include ‘it reminds me of Disembowelment‘ in my praise. The psychedelic menace and penchant for sudden aggression of Esoteric. The similar but more directly death metal tumult of Spectral Voice. The (pardon the phrase) dreamy wash and augmented instrumentation of Dream Unending. Or the sheer psychosis of Swallowed‘s Lunarterial, which I always saw as an evil mirrored-universe version of Transcendence into the Peripheral. All these bands, and countless more, have taken influence from Disembowelment to great effect, but I’ll be damned if I can name a band that really felt like they followed Disembowelment‘s footsteps precisely.
Metal is full of bands who managed one album (and maybe a handful of smaller releases) and fizzled out. The weird thing is, so many of those bands were genuinely great while they lasted. Disembowelment, to me, stands as probably the pinnacle of metal One Album Wonders. They came out swinging with a debut that I consider pretty much perfect for funereal death/doom, made sure to spice it up with outside elements that resonate within the mind, and quietly vanished into the, well, periphery. And honestly? I respect that. A brief career, a genre-defining masterpiece, and off they went, leaving a long shadow, a foundation for many other bands to build on, and a dope compilation for all of us to meditate on.
Jake Walters
Sometimes starting these retrospective pieces can be a bit daunting. Where do you start? I could launch into my usual responsible — but obvious — masturbatory language about an album I care enough about that, in this case, I’ve set aside years before finally making the time to put my thoughts into words and join others in doing the same. Or I could explain why, if you love some newer band, you might want to check this out because they’re doing something this band did years earlier. Maybe — just maybe — that would convince someone who hasn’t heard this record to finally give it a listen.
But in this case, given how this year has treated me and my psyche, I wanted to take a different approach. I want to tell you how this album feels to me, and what it makes me feel. So maybe I should just start there.
The incongruous cover art fails to properly prepare the listener for what unfolds when the needle drops on “The Tree of Life and Death”. While that striking ’90s aesthetic has become a classic in my mind, it still stands as one of the biggest cover-art whiffs in metal history—though Crypt of Kerberos’ World of Myths still stings me to this day. Regardless, feeling is what matters, and even looking at this record’s cover — the choices made, the aesthetic compromises — transports me back to the time and place when it was considered a viable idea.
The sonic identity of disEmbowelment, if not already known to the listener, is announced abruptly as the album opens with a raging burst of rattling death metal. The production is spacious and unforgiving — cold, but alive. As “The Tree of Life and Death” continues to unfold, the composition descends into a thick fog of funerary oppression, expanding outward and inward at once, reflective rather than merely crushing.
With a runtime of almost exactly one hour, each track plays an essential role, adding another edifice to the monolith that is Transcendence Into the Peripheral. I could easily extol every individual ornament added by each track as it deepens the album’s blend of artistic expression and emotional catharsis, but that misses the point. This record functions as a whole — inseparable, cumulative, suffocating in its intent.
Lurching, thunderous death-doom like this lives in tension, in the long ambles toward resolution. The best examples of the genre grant release only when the impact will be greatest. disEmbowelment, back in 1992, found a singular approach — one that spoke equally to fans of death metal and to those who craved the vast, oppressive space between the riffs.
Transcendence Into the Peripheral is a titanic wave of combustible riffs, laying bedrock for ideas even larger than the sounds themselves. A true one-and-done classic, and one that deserves as many celebrations as we can muster.
