It’s been a while since I’ve had two drops in a week, but I feel very strongly that neither this album nor this beer can be skipped, ignored or postponed.  You really have no idea what you’re in for with this one.  Only thing you can do is drink from the cup of heresy.  This week’s offerings: Agonanist’s The Spirit of Gravity and Drekker Brewing Company’s After School PRRT.

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The Tunes: Agonanist’s The Spirit of Gravity

Agonanist came on my radar after an instance of what the kids refer to as a “legendary refresh pull”: I was scrolling around YouTube, looking for something interesting to kill some time with, and up popped a video from one Mr. Andrew Lee, of Ripped To Shreds and Andrew Lee’s Heavy Metal Shrapnel fame, titled “Microtonal Black Metal Is Out Of Control.”  Like the sucker I am, I was instantly hooked from the title alone.  The video itself is an interview with Tyler Henthorn, multi-disciplinary artist and the sole member of the progressive black metal band Agonanist, on whose new album The Spirit of Gravity Lee contributes guest vocals.  What kept me around was the absolutely buck-wild guitars Lee and Henthorn are holding, and in that lies the heart of what Henthorn accomplishes with Agonanist.  Unfortunately, to properly understand what is so weird and unique about this band, you have to know a little music theory.  In traditional Western music, the octave is divided into twelve equal parts, or steps, and this temperament of music is referred to as 12edo: twelve equal divisions of the octave.  It’s the reason why on a traditional guitar, the 12th fret is one octave higher than the open string’s note.  On The Spirit of Gravity, Henthorn plays custom made guitars in 12-, 17- and 22edo.  In other words, Henthorn explores the notes in between notes in the traditional Western major and minor scales, or microtones, and he does so not just with the help of Lee, but with Kevin Paradis on drums and Colin Marston on keys (also microtonal, in case you were wondering) and engineering duty.

So, if you can imagine, The Spirit of Gravity is a wild ride, but for all its strange sounds and unconventional voicings, it really shouldn’t throw the average metalhead for too much of a loop.  This is progressive black metal with an emphasis on “black metal,” and while it certainly is meant to activate parts of your brain that are normally calcified, it’s very smart music made by a self-described “caveman,” and the black metal bones are incredibly apparent underneath all the deeply philosophical and mathematical layers.  Opener “Effacement” starts with a familiar structure of a wall of tremolo picked chords over frenetic blast beats, which should excite any black metal purist, but the eeriness and dissonance created by the fact that the notes are just slightly “wrong” makes it such a satisfying twist on a familiar formula.  “Cry of Cages” follows with a very Krallice-esque atonal melody that twists and bends around the standard notes of the Western scale; similarly, “For Mia” presents probably the most alien-sounding hypnotic loops of jagged, 22edo lines that seemingly melt into my brain in the best way possible.  This might not be the black metal release for everyone, but for me, I’m always very happy to see someone pushing the genre into new and interesting directions, and this is certainly the newest and most interesting I’ve come across in a long time.

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The Spirit of Gravity is available now on Transylvanian Recordings.  For more information on Agonanist, uh, I guess keep your eyes peeled on the above linked Bandcamp page, because I can’t find any socials for the band or Tyler.

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The Booze: Drekker Brewing Company’s After School PRRRT

What kind of a beer do you pair with an album as weird and unconventional as The Spirit of Gravity?  It took me a minute of thinking to come up with something suitable, but as I have no shortage of the unconventional in my beer fridge, I knew something had to be in there, and lo and behold: After School PRRRT was there right when I needed it.  Drekker Brewing Company has been my go-to when I want something in the smoothie sour variety, and while they do a lot of beers really well, their PRRRT series (an onomatopoeia of the sound of a can being opened) hasn’t let me down yet.  After School boasts an enormous variety of fruit packed into every can, like plum, pineapple strawberry, raspberry and passionfruit, as well as the requisite vanilla bean and lactose, but it’s also got the added zing of Gushers and Fruit-By-The-Foot dumped into the vat as well, because why not?  The end result is not overly sweet, if you can believe it, and also not overly tart for a sour beer.  It’s actually wonderfully balanced, and you do get those sugary-sweet, candy notes up front, along with bright pineapple and strawberry, but the plum actually does a decent job of taming down the intensity of the bigger flavors and rounds everything out really nicely.  Every sip feels nostalgic, but this is a beer that I would go back to time and again for more than just reminiscence.  It’s genuinely delicious.

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Until next time this column crosses your search feed, cheers and be good to each other.

-Ian