Based on the cover of Locrian’s rather good 2013 album Return to Annihilation, you get the feeling that this Chicago trio are of the dystopian kind. You can feel such a thread running through their experimental, yet wholly imaginative and palpable music; the same reflects with their visuals. No solo shopping cart on the cover this time, but a depiction of David Altmejd’s sculpture The Eye adorns Infinite Dissolution, which is worth peering into, or rather, purchasing the actual darn thing. It’s certainly worth it – Locrian have emerged as one of the real shining stars of chance-taking, no-form metal.
There’s a dearth of vocals here, so essentially, the goal is to get lost in some kind of meditative, trance-like state. DR doesn’t dabble in such things, so we’ll leave that up to the emerging black yoga crowd. Nevertheless, the songs found here are long, layered sojourns, many of which peddle in and out vast guitar work, the type doused in delay, full of graceful melodic guitar peddles to match the industrial tinges. The black metal push of opener “Arc of Extinction” is almost a false-start as the record tapers off in the extremity department from there. However, ensuing cuts like the fantastic three-part jaunt “The Index of Air,” the buoyant/melodic “The Great Dying,” and towering “Heavy Water” are compositional, climatic, cinematic, and experiential.
If you cut it this way, Infinite Dissolution is truly album-oriented stuff. No way this is going to be digested in one full go; it’s simply too full and voluminous for such an aural disservice. Beyond that, Locrian have expanded upon Return to Annihilation and have further separated themselves from any sort of subgenre cornering. Bands like these are always fun to watch and develop. Keep on trucking, Locrian.