23rd January 2025

Review: “Demon’s Underworld Trance” by Misanthropic Planet (1st Anniversary)

Comprising drummer Colin “Dark Shopanovic” Alley and multi instrumentalist and vocalist Aki Streeter, Misanthropic Planet are a Black Metal duo hailing from Klagenfurt am Wörthersee in Austria. Fuelled by themes of misanthropy, hate and darkness alongside a fair amount of self loathing and an unhealthy set of introspective thoughts, their debut album “Demon’s Underworld Trance” landed via Zarbomba Records last year. As if to prove that the record wasn’t a one off, flash in the pan moment, what followed by a collection of four waterfall released stand alone singles with “The Endless Forest of Darkness” being the last of their 2024 burnt offerings…

…within a few seconds “Blood Moon over Hades” transports the discerning listener to Medieval Transylvania and the world of Van Helsing with haunting, eerie synth sounds in the dead of night. As villagers raise their pitchforks and light their fires, sharpening their wooden steaks as they prepare for a different kind of war, the roar of the beast rises from the black depths in throat shredding fashion. A harsh spoken word wrapped in avant-garde Black Metal sounds is raw and feral yet precise with seemingly free form drumming painting a picture as black and cold as any Scandinavian midwinter night. There is a Noise Metal element at play that becomes more obvious as “Cutting with a Rusty Heroin Needle” takes shape, cold industrial style sounds without programming distort the mirrors reflection like a band acid trip. Melancholia burns through the sporadic guitars which feel as if they were played live on the floor and made up on the spot, recorded in a cavernous basement torture chamber hell. The kind of music the secret surfaces might submit terrorist suspects to in Guantanamo Bay to induce sleep deprivation and make them confess to pretty much anything, “Baal’s Revenge on Mankind” is a single verse that almost feels like poetry in motion. If that were being read by a demon against a backdrop of restless and relentless percussive battery that feels like the act of trephination.

Misanthropic Planet are also capable of aching beauty and with the melancholic instrumental “Suicide Attempt 8” the acoustic guitar gently weeps with almighty sorrow as the weight of the world slowly drains away. A moment of clarity in a world of pain, its the kind of respite that is needed during this Pandora’s box of oddities. The would be title track “Interplanetare Demon Trance” then returns to the realm of Noise Metal with sounds that distort reality as if a signal was being sent from distant space that we could not interpret. Eclectic and eccentric it continues the narrative of this collection as one might expect before the violence of Hardcore Punk inspired Black Metal comes ripping through the parade in “Self-Hatred Guts“. This one sounds like it was recorded on a single microphone placed in the centre of a rehearsal space, the evil nature of the chaos something that instantly makes you want to crack a smile because it’s just so bizarre. “Ton-618” follows suit, more in keeping with the earlier cuts with a lo-fi feel as the riffs collide with sparce screams. You can just imagine bands like Imperial Triumphant loving the freedom of this music because it bows to no convention known to this world. It could be the soundscape to a low budget science fiction horror movie or the sound of aliens speaking in tongues but it is also strangely relaxing… [7/10]

Track Listing