It riffs. The amount of times an album has been explained to me with just these two words is staggering. The quality of “having riffs” is enough for many a metalhead, thrashers in particular, to fall in love with an album. But how does this work? Surely the amount of riffs cannot be the determining factor here. After all, an album like Dopesmoker (Sleep) is all riff, all the time and yet wholly unappealing to thrashers all around. One of my personal most controversial takes is that thrash is completely overrated; a transitional genre from the 80s that led to black, death and grind but worthy of little interest beyond being viewed through that very historical lens. The playbook of thrash is just so limited, barely more than a pamphlet of chugs and bad vocals. That is why am always glad when a band like Dissimulator comes along and shows that thrash doesn’t need to be so creatively bankrupt.
Dissimulator is pretty open about their influences, with the Giger-esque techno porn cover and the song titles heavily leaning into a type of vintage digitalism. Yes, this does remind me of Voivod to a degree, but even more so of the weird thrash proggers of the 90s. There is some Coroner to this sound, and a dash of Death, particularly in the vocal department, but the writing isn’t a total ripoff. In fact, direct quotes throughout Lower Form Resistance from the bands Dissimulator‘s clear influences are rare. While the band plays their hand early and doesn’t hides their progressive tendencies much, it is initially hard for me to pinpoint what the progressive element here is. Dissimulator don’t change time signatures much, and I even sat in my car, counting like some nerd, to figure out that most of this record is indeed in 4/4. Occasional excursions into ternary time signatures (3/4 and 12/8 stuck out positively) feel somehow both abrupt and smooth and the band often uses these changes to serve as a trick. Almost like a hardcore band, tempo might change abruptly, but by switching into different subdivisions a lot of this gets smoothed over, hidden — the band will pass one off as the other and obfuscate their repertoire of transitions that way. A non-technical tl;dr of this: Dissimulator think about what they are doing. This does not mean that the album is flawless, of course. While Lower Form Resistance remains engaging and very energetic, the high level of energy and commitment to the almighty riff becomes a bit much and can feel draining. A band needs to compensate with this with variety and Dissimulator does this, by introducing more lead work and slightly more tremolo-focused riffs in the last two songs. I cannot help but wonder if a shorter runtime would have helped an album so consistently intense, and while this feature doesn’t break the experience, it does prevent me to committing to it in full with regularity.
A lot of thrash just happens. Bands get together, they jam, come up with Metallica ripoff riffs #69 – #84 (nice), string them together and call it a day. Thrash is, in that sense, the epitome of Flanderization — a tradition so long and so devoid of any artistic impetus that it almost feels like a waste of time to put any effort into its construction or the analysis thereof. It is likely that Dissimulator will not play as many festivals and probably not sell as many records as the next ‘great’ party-focused re-thrash band and will mainly appeal to thrash curmudgeons like me. This is a good sign though, as your harshest critics are the ones that are the most important to sway.
