We get pruned / Before we can behold / The fruit that is our offering
Divide and Dissolve are ruthlessly simple two-piece drone metal project that embellish their compositions with classical instrumentation. Both members coming from Indigenous communities (specifically Black and Cherokee, and Māori), and as such, Divide and Dissolve’s music is fashioned against the colonial forces that trample through Indigenous cultures. Knowing this makes the malice and sense of loss within their music potent and specific – wordless as it may be, there is no ambiguity as to what the listener should feel, and where those feelings should be directed. As such, their music is starkly different from the rest of the field. They emphasise simplicity in their compositions, immediately engrossing textures, and atmospheres of tarnished futures and rays of hope. Gas Lit was their first release on a label (Invada Records) which brought worldwide attention. Systemic now builds on that success, taking the same formula and refining it.
Whilst the producer hasn’t changed (Ruban Neilson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra), the production itself improves upon Gas Lit. The divide between their neoclassical elements and the heavy moments is even more stark. Where the assorted brass and saxophone (Takiya Reed, also on guitar) sounds fully natural and restful, the drums and electric guitar are raw. The cymbal-heavy mix smothers the high end in natural distortion, and the guitar is cavernous and terrifying. The doom-drone moments feel completely live, as they forgo overdubs. There are no additional guitar layers or even bass, which most two-piece bands would not be bold enough to exclude.
Compositionally minimal, the songs typically repeat relatively simple and emotionally tragic riffs and ostinatos. The tracks are all fairly short, particularly compared to the mainstream idea of drone metal. It’s a fully unique record – you can’t really playlist these pieces next to anything except Divide and Dissolve’s music, for the better. It’s the kind of stark difference that forces you to research the band and understand what drives them to make their art.
When you hear sludge metal this stripped back, you can really appreciate minute details amid titanic sounds. During “Derail”’s slowdown outro, the guitar line swaps between screechy false notes and silence, letting the room’s reverb fill the gap. Similarly, on “Simulacra”, after the record’s most intense song opening, the tempo becomes so funereal that the guitar’s drone seems to become an organ.
There are plenty of lovely, quiet moments where the neoclassical aspects of the band come to focus. The overture “Want” is a colourful synth piece that it could have been on an Oneothrix Point Never album, with tortured loops galloping like a unicorn struggling against a hunter’s tethers. Key tracks “Indignation” and “Blood Quantum” begin gradually and darkly with a small brass orchestra before the band joins. When the doom-sludge and classical instrumentation work side by side, the record reaches its true peak, and even as the heavy parts of these tracks finish, the horns emerge unscathed. By the finale “Desire”, your ear will be trained to expect the horns to collapse into drums and distortion, so it’s extremely pleasant when the track is entirely benign and hopeful.
Divide and Dissolve pointedly choose to be non-verbal even though the themes of their music are so vital. The exception is “Kingdom of Fear”, a track centred on a poem by Minori Sanchiz-Fung, who also featured on Gas Lit’s “Did You Have Something To Do With It”. The background ambience is stellar: gently churning organ and piano, Reed gently plucking a simple theme, and Sylvie Nehill’s cymbals carefully accenting the endings of particular stanzas.
A shadow is whispering…
“I have agony on my side.
I have experts on violence,
I have control of the tide”
I encourage you to seek out the lyric sheet which enhances the poem by arranging it carefully on the page. The piece is powerful and placed carefully in the tracklist to pique your interest on side two. Divide and Dissolve are certainly an effective instrumental band, but I’d gladly hear a full record of collaborations such as this. Moreover, it’s great that the band have returned to double down on all the things that made their first record so captivating and uncompromising.
8.5/10
Systemic is out on Invada Records on the 30th June. You can pre-order the record here.