Whatever else Legion of Andromeda are, they’re fucked. Chances are, even just from reading that, you have an impression in your head of what it means. Chances also are that that impression isn’t nearly fucked enough. We’re talking megafucked. The Tokyo duo of  vocalist -R- and guitarist/programmer -M- have clearly crawled out of some desolate hellscape and they arrive at the surface armed with psychotic churn, pig grunts, a Christophe Szpajdel logo (remind me to sit down one day and tell you about my dream of asking him to design an art deco logo for this site) and brutality rarely endeavored in doom. The four tracks of their self-released, self-titled debut will simply be too much for some, maybe most, listeners, but for a select few, the oppressive tones and front-and-center bludgeoning will fit just right.

The included songs, “Cosmo Hammer,” “Overlord of Thunder,” “Sociopathic Infestation” and “Fist of the Galaxy,” are placed in order from shortest to longest, and the most discernible vocals throughout are the quick grunts between lines of “Cosmo Hammer” and the 10-minute closer. Beyond that, it’s either super-low growls or higher, still mid-range screams, and what words there are are reduced to their basic syllables much the same way percussion is reduced to bell hits, programmed kick thud and cruel repetitions. Make no mistake: Legion of Andromeda‘s self-titled only runs about 31 minutes long, but you feel every second of it. There’s no zone-out option — the two-piece want you awake to feel every inhumane moment. There’s no letup, no ambient moment to let listeners catch their breath. Nothing of the sort. From the moment it starts until it’s over, Legion of Andromeda is an exercise in aural sadism. By the time “Fist of the Galaxy” rounds out, you’ve been duly punched by it.

As to what might drive a person to this kind of madness, I won’t dare speculate, but suffice it to say that the backpatch-worthy tortures that Legion of Andromeda conjure have an underlying psychic violence that might even be more unsettling than the music itself. They vary the pace some, though “Cosmo Hammer” and “Sociopathic Infestation” seem to be using the same tempo — the sound is full, but the elements involved are minimal, so it stands out — and “Overlord of Thunder” might be more death than doom as a result of being the fastest of the bunch, while “Fist of the Galaxy” is the slowest right up until the end, but really, these are minute distinctions. What’s on tap with Legion of Andromeda is a front-to-back ride through the darkest recesses of violent thought. It’s not about what they’re doing in a given moment so much as the extreme and overwhelming terrors they concoct with the whole.

And those are fittingly nightmarish. I don’t know how Legion of Andromeda might expand on this form and still manage to keep the minimalist sensibility that pervades the self-titled, but for the oppressive atmosphere created across these four cuts — gouges, really — they warrant the attention to find out. Again, it’ll be too much for most, but those who are up to it will appreciate having their consciousness chiseled away that much more.

Legion of Andromeda, Legion of Andromeda (2013)

Legion of Andromeda on Thee Facebooks

Legion of Andromeda on Bandcamp

Tags: Japan, Legion of Andromeda, Legion of Andromeda Self-titled, self-titled, Tokyo, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Monday, November 25th, 2013 at 6:02 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.