Artist: Lysergic
Country: Canada
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Digital
Year: 2026
In the final moments of 2023, Canadian band Lysergic released a beastly album entitled ‘Dimethyltryptikon’. Even with a playing time of just under half an hour, it was actually an almost fatal amount of sensory overload. This duo takes no account of the unsuspecting listener and dumps a load of Black/Death/Grind/Noise on the world, which probably only a very small minority can appreciate. To take it another step further, Lysergic had the album remixed by a number of artists in 2024, giving us a kind of 2.0 version of the album in Hardstyle, Industrial, and Breakcore variants. Let’s be clear, Lysergic is not for everyone.
This new EP, ‘Towering Altars Of Misanthropy’, clocks in at exactly 15 minutes, but it proves that this is perhaps the best way to serve such a relentless and merciless sonic beating. Because, in a way, this newest piece is even more intense than ‘Dimethyltryptikon’. The magic mushrooms on the cover of that aforementioned debut album already hinted that what was to come would be completely mental. But although those hints are absent from this cover, I was somewhat warned by my experience with the earlier work. And, yes, this one is equally bonkers. Still, it blew me away again.
Not only because of the ruthless assault in audio form, but also because of how well it is put together. Nothing on ‘Towering Altars Of Misanthropy’ is just noise; there are clearly ideas behind it, with solid riffs and relentless digital drums forming a firm foundation for the thunderous and screeching vocals. Through the use of electronic elements and dynamic vocals, Lysergic is certainly not your average Bestial Black/Death Metal band, although the similarities are clear. In fact, this is how I imagine it would sound if you locked The Berzeker, Atari Teenage Riot, Blasphemy, and Regurgitate (or Nasum) in one rehearsal room and asked them to come up with a joint effort.
Once again, Lysergic proves itself to be a breath of fresh air in this scene, which generally adheres strictly to the boundaries set almost four decades ago by bands such as Impaled Nazarene, Beherit, and Blasphemy.
