Words by Peter Tanski
Throughout this commingled histories of Metal and Hardcore/Punk, socio-political and environmental issues have held court on stages and in mosh pits. Unlike Hardcore, Metal (and its myriad step-children) also employed fantastical and literary lyrics in order to convey their greater messages. This has been true as far into the past as Birmingham’s Black Sabbath, and as recent as Leeds/Yorkshire’s most adept sayers of sooth, Slimelord. Casting a particularly psychedelic and sludgey spell over their epic Death/Doom opus, “Chytridiomycosis Relinquished” is equally fixated on nature and the supernatural (or supra-natural). It is as epic as anything Homer had penned, as cosmically horrifying as Lovecraft, as steeped in mythopoeia as Tolkien – and as original as all of the aforementioned.
Off Shelf: The album’s title refers to a very specific, and potentially deadly, amphibian fungal infection. Lyrically, the album concerns itself with this as well as other natural and preternatural/apocalyptic themes scattered across its storyline. Is there a central or unifying theme?
Xander Bradley: Something devours the moon. This splits the balance of nature itself wide open, to give way for the chytridiomycosis disease to ravage its way across all species. It is said there is a deity that lives at the centre of the planet that could reverse this cataclysmic process, a single human ventures there. They find a humongous hanging bell that beckons the thing out from its lair. Once the two meet, the giant amphibian explains that the virus has taken great hold upon him also, and that to bring the surface life back from the brink, he must first be cured. The human eats a weird plant from the subterranean cavern ecosystem and starts to shrink. He enters the giant amphibian via its mouth to battle his way through its biology and defeat the inner bacterium. The mission is successful and the adventurer returns to the surface in hopes that the surface will have been cured. However, the creature was Mutanta, an imposter in place of the supposed beast Amphibia, who is missing…
Mutanta, in his recovery, can continue the plan for destruction by building an army of ancient creatures to march upon the surface. Our human character returns to the surface to be greeted by horrific smells and sounds of world demise, his mission appears to have failed despite curing the guardian of nature. He knows not that he helped the opposite…
The ecosystems are now in pure turmoil, weather systems go haywire, all life dies off or lingers barely on. Then, Mutanta and his hordes breach the planet’s crust and set a conquest upon all the land. Amphibia, injured from his previous battle with Mutanta trying to halt his consummation of the moon, emerges once again for a final stand, but fails. Nothing stops the decimation of the entire planet. Plastical remains of human civilization washes down all tributaries and new evolutionary creatures rise once the armies have completed their task.
OS: The doom-laden dirges and spasmodic blackened passages that flavor the record’s sound casts a hypnotic pall over the experience. Was the music crafted to fit the theme of the piece, or vice versa?
XB: The music conjures up enough imagery in its initial form to give an idea of what the themes or stories may be depicting, but the compositions were largely complete before any proper lyrical content was attached to it. Later parts of Gut-Brain Axis and The Hissing Moor I believe were the last to have sections musically completed so the more finished events of the adventure helped those. When we had all the songs we wanted on the album, I figured out a tracklisting that felt best to flow musically, to the story too and also as an album. Then it was easier to properly work on the lyrics and the music informed the specificities of the lyrical events.
OS: There is a Lovecraftian/Tolkien bent to this album, a palpable fear of something inescapable and stygian. Is there a common fear of the world’s unmaking amongst the group’s ranks?
XB: Personally no, the world will continue to change and evolve forever. But there’s definitely a fascination with it, Tolkien’s Mordor has always captivated me with the black mountains and fissures with the ever present volcano and spectacular eye upon the tower. Dark realms like these and from video games like Bloodborne are just super cool and it’s awesome for us to delve into some of that imagery for our album. I think Lovecraft however is a bit more orientated to pure horror than fantasy so is maybe too bleak to be compared to our wacky creatures and colourful caverns.
OS: Throughout the 7-track, 48-minute odyssey, “Chrytidiomycosis Relinquished” delivers a cinematic experience to the record’s listeners. Were film scores at the fore of your collective thoughts while in the writing process?
XB: There is actually a specific part of John Williams score of Attack Of The Clones that inspired the opening melodies of Gut-Brain Axis. It’s the part where Obi-Wan is exploring Kamino and Anakin has his nightmares. The quite typical classical motif of a moving melody over a chord was a simple but effective thing to do and felt powerful for a song opening. I incorporated some basic minor chords that felt similar to what our other guitarist at the time, Krystian would do, so it was a nice evolution of the Slimelord sound. However I think that’s the only direct film score inspiration from the album, it was largely a pure death metal mindset as a whole.
OS: Keeping the soundtrack assertion in mind – as well as my previous mention of Tolkien and Lovecraft – I’d like to ask what sorts of films/fiction aided in the inspiration of the recording?
XB: A lot of old 50s and 60s fantasy and adventure films were the biggest inspiration for me, like 20,000 Leagues Under The Seas. These all had an element of fantastical adventure and took trivial things like a cave or a creature but with a lot of ingenuity and imagination brought them to life in crazy interesting ways. Fantastic Voyage for example deals with scientists shrinking a team to go inside of a human to save his life. Journey To The Centre Of The Earth has so many awesome sets of stalactites and caverns and mountainous landscapes that I have always been enraptured with, especially lava! Even the Sinbad movies have wild creatures for the hero to battle like giant versions of small animals, or two headed birds or creatures from ancient myth. These were all really captivating at the time of writing Chytridiomycosis Relinquished.
OS: Would you all agree that there is something inherently mystical and ancient that is inherent to the U.K. as it had such a wealth of high strangeness in its recorded history?
XB: The British Isles are such an ancient place on Earth for humans because it had an insane amount of different cultures and civilisations spread across it over history. But it’s also uniquely itself because we’re an island that was considered separate to the European mainland for conquests and needed extra thought if you wanted to come here. Then the northern territories were always spoke of mysteriously by ancient Rome, and things like witchcraft are considered to have originated in Celtic people which is still a language spoken today by some. So yeah, the UK has a solid foot in ancient mystical history which absolutely allows us to channel our homeland into Slimelord, something that is maybe inappropriate to do in a band like Cryptic Shift.
OS: There seems to be a deep connection to the environment that runs through the entirety of your recorded output. Is it fair to say that nature itself is a guiding force in your music?
XB: It is the guiding force absolutely through our whole existence. From geology to biology, chemistry and environmentalism, even old myths that are linked with the natural movement of the stars and moon that were interpreted by cultures as magic or the gods. There’s a lot to draw from just ‘nature’.
OS: Where do you all stand on the recent revelations in the news regarding UAPs and the idea that there is another layer of “otherness” to the universe?
XB: It makes good inspiration for sci-fi tales. There’s no point getting caught up on ‘maybe’ there’s aliens here, you’re not gonna be privy to it in anyway so just stick to your imagination.
OS: What does Slimelord deliver to the music world that is unequivocally Slimelord? What sets you apart?
XB: Coherence between the music and lyrical themes, actual composed songs with motifs that define the song across its runtime, many many layers beneath an initial listening experience to delve into for all time to come. I don’t release a song just because we made some noise and let’s call that a song. Our songs have a reason for every element in them which I believe is lacking from so much music. But as it should, you can only connect to a finite amount of media and it inspires us to be better for ourselves.
OS: “Crytidiomycosis Relinquished” can be counted amongst some of my most cherished records, alongside Neurosis “Through Silver in Blood”, Acid Bath “Paegan Terrorism Tactics”, and Eyehategod “In The Name If Suffering”. How would you like this album to be remembered 20 years from now?
XB: Weird death metal, huge riffs, peculiar atmospheres and a story/lyrics that can stand alongside your favourite adventure books/movies to get your imagination going.