If you asked me what metal scene I think is most full of surprises, I'd most probably say it's that of the Czech Republic. I don't know what it is about Czechia that makes it a cauldron of some of the most interesting metal bands of the 90s and 2000s. Lykathea Aflame plays brutal tech/death metal in vein of Cryptopsy and Nile with warm, ambient synths, spoken word passages and major key harmonies and the Veselý brothers of !.T.O.O.H.! play some off-kilter death/grind with strange, angular riffs swirling together with beautiful, epic, even somewhat melancholic melodies. It doesn't end with those two, either. Bands like Forgotten Silence veered off into avant-prog territory, Jig-Ai were some of the first to integrate guro/anime imagery into goregrind, a mantle later taken by bands like Go-Zen. Root and Master's Hammer both started off as first-wave black metal in vein of bands like Venom before developing their own respective and unique sounds, the latter with electronic experimentation and the former with progressive-tinged and epic traditional heavy metal inspiration.
As you can see, what unites them is not a Czech sound as much as a philosophy of making interesting, creative music in various ways. Contrastic, a band from the city of Most in northern Czechia, fits like a glove into that scene by virtue of their uniqueness. The sound on their 2000 debut album (self-titled "Contrastic"), is some very off-kilter and creative death/grind striking a beautiful balance between a multitude of musical ideas and an integrated, cohesive musical identity. No amount of comparison can do this band justice in every way, and this review will only compare what can be compared, and any comparison is necessarily narrow and specific. This album is one of a kind, both in what it shares in common with other bands and what it doesn't.
Unlike a lot of other "out there" metal bands, it doesn't forget its roots despite straying from them. With all of the strange instruments, eclecticism and unconventional drum and guitar parts, it is a death/grind album at its core. The guitars grind with fast, chaotic power chord riffs, the bass growls as it plays in tandem with the guitar, and the snare's cranked, giving every blast-beat just that bit more bite. It's got the technicality and musicianship of bands like Symphonies-era Carcass. It's easily on par with any classic death/grind album, every riff feels intentional and every bit of its pacing feels just right. The vocals, like Carcass, change from high-pitched shrieks to growls, with the addition of hardcore/crossover style shouts and gang vocals.
While the albums don't sound much alike, I think a good philosophical comparison would be "Colors" by Between the Buried and Me (bear with me here!). I think what this album does with death/grind is what BTBAM did with metalcore on that album, wherein the conventions and tropes of the genre remain at the heart (blast-beats and punk-tinged death metal with Contrastic, breakdown-laden and emotive metalcore with BTBAM) with an integration of musical ideas from beyond the pale of their respective genres in interesting ways that appeal to more traditional grindcore and metalcore fans with certain expectations for the music they like and the artsier prog and avant-garde fans that like their music to be more experimental.
As traditional as I make it out to be, it's similarly quite unique. The riffing style is multifaceted, with a fast, melodic, Gothenburg-on-a-Speedball style giving you some a bit of catchiness before tossing you back into the maelstrom of blast-beats and dissonant power chords and pinch harmonics. The more melodic sensibilities remind me somewhat of bands like Gridlink and Impaled, the latter of which takes explicit inspiration from both Symphonies and Heartwork-era Carcass that seems to reveal itself similarly here, but the pacing with the more manic and dissonant riffs and the strange dance of melody and dissonance has never, in my experience, been done like these guys do it.
Pushing the envelope even further is the eclecticism manifesting both in instrumentation and compositional style. The album starts off the track "War Laws?", featuring some surreal synths and programmed drums before hitting you in the face with some groovy death metal, while the track after, "Verschrottung durch Arbeit" is when the album's sound becomes properly apparent, with blast-beats and pinch harmonics melding with beautifully harmonized guitars. The first two tracks are a harbinger of the album to come: a firm, technical death/grind backbone, surreal ambient electronic/IDM influences, and a melodic sensibility that sweetens the sound some. The cuts on this album range from more traditional grindcore, like the 33-second long "I Feel Dislike" to more electronically oriented cuts like final track, the 8 and a half minute long "About..." and everything in between.
But it's not just the stitching together of influences alone that gives this album its uniqueness, but also the instrumentalists' sensibilities and their ability to integrate these varying musical ideas. One good example is the track "Chopin's Ulcerous Colic", featuring some really good piano. Rather than breaking from the death/grind style, the piano actually complements the guitar and drums rather than fighting them. It adds an interesting timbre. I think this should be a whole other kind of music (piano-grind FTW!). Moreover, the track "Unattractive 'M'" has a church organ overtop some fast melodic guitar, this time as counterpoint rather than complement. You would expect this to clash, but it doesn't at all. It doesn't feel like a disjointed, previously-considered set of influences brought together, but rather almost like an entire new kind of death metal/grindcore no one's ever done before.
On the guitarist's side of things, aside from the aforementioned "grind with a bit of melodic class" style, there's some traditional metal and hard rock influences on the track "The Letter". Many of the solos are similarly somewhat bluesy and reminiscent of some of Bill Steer's solos. While a lot of extreme metal solos pride themselves on Kerry King style chromaticism and atonality, the solo sensibilities on this album fit a lot more with the riff being played in the background, with a slight simplicity and sleaze that function in counterpoint to the technical riffing. Strange to think the solos are simpler than the riffs, but that's not the weirdest thing about this album. There's a good bit of wah-wah pedal use, too, allowing for some funk influence on the track "Sex With Four Walls" (my personal favorite!) and some sparse soundscapes on "Vocalic System from the Perspective of a Social Distinctiveness".
While everyone's doing a top-notch job, probably some of the most clever work is the drumming. To complement the strange electronic sections and the more traditional death metal and grind sections, both programmed drums with strange timbres and real drums are used. The real drums are great, the snare cranked like any good grindcore snare and constant punchiness. One of the strangest but most welcome additions is some cowbell on tracks like 'Y.F.C.' and "Vocalic System..." that give the music a very fun feel. The rhythms are similarly quite strange, ranging from some very traditional (but very well-done) d-beats, blast-beats and skank beats that you'd expect from your grindcore to some weird, kinda-hip-hop and disco-ish rhythms on tracks like "Sex With Four Walls" and "The Letter". It's just really good. The vocals are also quite varied. There's Carcass-esque alternations between low growls and shrieks, but some hardcore and crossover influence coming in with some hardcore style screams and gang shouts. There isn't much more to say, but the vocals are pretty good.
The strangest track of all, I think, is the closer "About...", the longest cut on the album. It's primarily electronic, with a squelchy bass and a fun little synth with a warbly vibrato that makes me think of the soundtrack to LSD Dream Emulator by Osamu Sato, with spurts of death/grind continuously interspersed (and a really good solo too!). Around 3 minutes in, it stops in its tracks, before starting again with an entirely new section of a repetitive clean guitar riff, synth atmospheres and programmed drums that remind me of Aphex Twin or Autechre to some extent (that's the closest comparison I can think of, it doesn't fit perfectly). A fitting end to such a chaotic album.
All in all, this is one hell of an album. I'm just a bit disappointed it's only 30 minutes long, but a too short album's better than a too long one. Where will I go from here? Well, I might as well listen to their demo and split material and their 2020 output "Mamun". I need that sweet Contrastic in my veins, man. I recommend this to anyone with either an ear for death metal, grindcore or just interesting music in general. If you're interested in buying it, it's available on Bandcamp digitally and you can get it here. SUPPORT THE ARTISTS!!! THEY DESERVE IT!!!
Final rating: 10/10