It is a wonderfully exhilarating feeling you get when you hear the first single ahead of the release of a new album from an exciting band you have for years considered to be on an upward trajectory, on the brink of a quantum leap to greatness. Even better when that feeling gets amplified on account of the stunning quality of that lead single and intensifies to fever pitch upon hearing the album in its entirety and realizing that your expectations were exceeded and you have something special and uniquely electrifying in your hands. I am of course talking about Dephosphorus and their thrilling new album Planetoktonos.

Starting from the 2011 Axiom EP, the Greek giants have continued to hone their peculiar style of astrogrind, a combination of grindcore, death metal, crust, hardcore and increasingly psychedelic electronics, into an increasingly distinctive, lethal and mesmering genre of their own,into something that is equal parts brutal and cerebral, inspired in spirit and narrative by science fiction greats Iain M. Banks and James S.A. Corey, and driven by similar awe-inducing ideas and visionary energy that fueled the band’s literary inspirations. 

The signs of greatness were already on display on the Dephosphorus’s fourth album Sublimation, itself a major step forward from the raw energy of Impossible Orbits. On Sublimation, songs such as “Multiple-Dimension Descriptor” and “Into the Glory of Eternal Orbit” brimmed with infectious charm and a sense of cosmic wonder amid the scorching intensity, with the former going supernova at mid-point and the latter surfacing with an unusually uplifting drive before spiraling into a hardcore-infused maelstrom.

But no matter how impressive Sublimation was and remains, it now feels almost like an astral spring board that launched Desphosphorus through a stargate into a new galaxy, an evolutionary vault that becomes increasingly clear as Planetoktonos progresses. It may have taken five years between Sublimation and Planetoktonos, but songwriter Thanos Mantas used that time wisely and well to develop an endless supply of mind-melting riffs that grind, groove, thrash and pummel, coupled with wild musical plot twists which all serve a vital purpose. 

And those curveballs impress: already the opening track Living in a Metastable Universe starts as a groove-oriented train that promises a relatively straightforward hardcore pit-starter, before suddenly swerving and accelerating and materializing into a halt inside an ethereal nebula filled with disembodied chants, before lurching onward and marching into the Hunting for Dyson Spheres and its cold intro electronics, followed by a showcase of how matter is ground into stardust in Mantas’s cosmic mortar. While undeniably excellent in their own right, the opening duo pales (no pun intended) in comparison and feels like astral foreplay when that aforementioned lead single Pale Veins introduces itself with a simple but eminently powerful hammering riff. It’s joined by a rapidly expanding wave of electronic texture before the band launches into action and the riff starts evolving as the song barrels forward with a beautifully Schroedingerian rhythmic manner, almost as if at once in and out of sync, before reaching escape velocity with a flurry of razor-sharp riffs and bone-sawing grind galore.

Frankly, any of the nine songs would warrant a poetic essay praising their qualities. The title track feels like flying headfirst into a pulverizing meteor shower, while Calculating Infinity takes the listener into a pocket universe of groove and wildly oscillating fretboard maneuvers and Eternal Bloom dazzles with patiently snaking psychedelic textures. And all this is crowned by an excellent production which achieves the rare, seemingly self-contradictory feat of being clear and rough in equal measure, where guitars have bite and texture, but nothing gets muddy, even at the most frenetic, multilayered moments, and Panos Agoros’s howling, star-shattering vocals have found a perfect sweet spot of intensity and clarity.

Assuming that astrogrind = grindcore, Planetoktonos ranks among the greatest envelope-pushing grindcore albums I have ever heard. Or would you prefer calling it deathgrind? Sure, but I would very much like to see an album of that particular genre, or any other found on the extreme side of the intensity spectrum, which surpasses the captivating brilliance, blistering fury and curious intelligence of Planetoktonos. The sense of marvel Planetoktonos incites is unique and elevates it well above other bands that strive to synthesize brain and brawn, and Dephosphorus has created an idiosyncratic and unrivalled genre landmark. Its immediacy is evident and intoxicating and its depths and textures form an inescapable gravity well of wonder. Planetoktonos is an incredible cosmic grand slam that punches a new wormhole into the celestial tapestry, with capillary waves that will continue to expand, impress and inspire.

– Zyklonius

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Planetoktonos is available now in different formats from 7 Degrees Records, Nerve Altar and Selfmadegod Records. For more information on Dephosphorus, check out their official website and Facebook page.