WHOURKR is a French experimental group who describes themselves as so.
"
WHOURKR is an experimental band on the frontier of death metal and electronic music. No lyrics, a dense sound, suffocating and poetic, the music aims at deep ecology and human issues."
Naät is the debut album of the project, and from start to finish it delivers this aforementioned promised suffocating density with an impressive ease that will strangle you and leave you gasping for air. This might just be selling it short for those who are used to such bold claims, but like any metal album that could be described in such terms as an "onslaught of sound" or "brutally devastating"
Naät certainly leaves a strong, if very rough imprint on the listener which will stick with you.
With the entire album balancing not-so-delicately somewhere between death metal, grindcore, electronic music and industrial noise opening track
Cera is full of double-kickers, intense distorted guitars, vocal grunts and swirling glitch effects which brings to mind something similar to what Napalm Death would sound like produced by Aaron Funk from Venetian Snares. The rest of the album is no different,
Hackta hits you like a brick, an atonal blast of screaming, sped up drum loops, blastbeats and white noise.
Kommiu and
Yum Nho Naat follow a similar suit, as does
Nrrit which is distinguished only by the classical sample at the end. These comprise the bulk of the rather short
Naät, and if it can be accused of anything based off these few tracks it sticks to the groups story and doesn't deviate one bit. As it turns out this is a good thing.
Out of what is left
W is ten seconds of skipping noise, but the only song here that is remarkably different from everything else is
Nhosg. With the intro based around a clean guitar pattern and orchestral synths, it doesn't take long to build itself into the intensity of the rest of
Naät but it takes a different route by eventually trying to wrap the looped clean guitars around it's chaotic fusion of blastbeats, screaming and noise. It's an odd fusion that doesn't quite work perfectly, and smack bang in the middle of an album that is pretty much non-stop in its intensity it feels a little out of place. Minor criticisms, however as it is still a very good track and shows a lot of promise for the group.
Naät lives up to WHOURKR's promise of offering something different, but the group could still use some time to develop their sound. Its appealing fusion of subgenres works for the most part, tracks such as
Cera and
Hackta leaving the listener truly impressed. Fortunately this sense does not diminish much, as the albums length is short and it doesn't drag as much as it would if it were any longer. Though
Naät is rough in many ways it is definitely worth a look.
