(im•bro•glio)
1. A misunderstanding, disagreement, etc., of a complicated or bitter nature.
2. An intricate and perplexing state of affairs; a complicated or difficult situation.
3. A fittingly named, noisy, Converge inspired band formed in Dayton, OH but now residing in Syracuse, NY.

I discovered this band and new, Illinois based label through a sports message board, and I’m pretty glad I did. Not only do Imbroglio have some dissonant, chaotic, atonal, caustic pseudo grindcore/hardcore heavily inspired by Converge, but there’s some atmospheric injects that remind me of bands like Gaza, Harlots, Nights Like These and such. Not just the piecemeal, random moments of post rock but that some of their peers employ, but sludgy, rumbling sections of discordance and menace mixed with some ambient refrains.

Opener “Imperial Swarm” starts the album with a foreboding two minute lurch before “Suicide Pact” delivers the expected cacophony of screeches, roars, tangled riffs and dissonance, before it again ends with some more impressive, oozing, lurching filth. “Defilement” is a quick, ambient interlude before “Butterfly Children” explodes from the speakers with an almost death metal prose before careening into distorted, raucous, antagonistic chaos that’s on par with many of the genre’s better noise mongers (i.e. Architect) . “Upside Down Diamond” is a squeal fest that alternates between monolithic dirge and squawking chaos. “Delusional Outlaw” is a bleak, spoken work interlude before the closing vortex of “Peachgrove Whore” and the eleven minute closer “Excavating the Killing Fields”, which does the whole few minutes of silence to fill space between slow, penetrating noise and the needless, if disturbingly ambient last 4 minutes.

On the whole, a pretty impressive release with high production and presentation values from a small, new label and pretty unheard of band, who has the chops and talent to compete with the noisy brethren on Black Market Activities (Ed Gein, the_Network, Khann, Romans, Engineer, etc).

[Visit the band's website]

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