I don't know what Zapruder means in the French speaking province of Québec, but here in Texas it means something tragically specific. Around these parts (insert spittoon sound effect here) it's a historic reference to one Abraham Zapruder—a Ukrainian-born American man who filmed the very explicit assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy as he drove through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas one Friday in November of 1963. Abraham is now synonymous with President Kennedy's head flowering into an Arby's beef and cheddar as well as an additional sixty years of conspiracy theories and obsessive mystery.
Now, is the intention of the Québec based band, Autodafé, to invoke this most famous act of public political extermination that was accidentally memorialized in celluloid that day in Dallas? The Zodiacal crosshairs in the band's logo and the Xerox version of the 1897 painting of The Burning of Archpriest Avvakum by Russian painter, Grigoriy Myasoyedov as the album's cover certainly makes me think it's a strong possibility. The painting depicts the burning of Eastern Orthodox Christians in 1682 Russia. You could say the fiery death of Avvakum and the assassination of Kennedy both represent political martyrdom and the horrid permanence that that sort of philosophy fosters. It could be that Mr. Zapruder might represent us—the passive populace that can only watch in traumatized stupefaction as the public execution of a man seared itself into the American zeitgeist forever.
Autodafé are a two-piece grind-noise band formed by Chadhel's GT and Alex Gaudreault from the synth and noise project, Twenty9Cult, during the 2021 Québec Covid lockdowns. GT handled the bass, guitar and vocal work, while Gaudreault handled noise and drum machine programming as well as all recording and production. The band's mixture of noise, metallic hardcore, sludge metal and grindcore pays homage to 90's bands like Enemy Soil and Agoraphobic Nosebleed. In May of 2023 Autodafé released their debut full-length, Zapruder, digitally via Give Praise Records.
GT's guitar prowess has been well documented within the pages of Return to the House of Grindcore as I have reviewed several of Chadhel's past releases. Yet, don't disregard Autodafé as just another extension of Chadhel. The guitar playing on Zapruder is stylistically different from what you would hear from a typical Chadhel release. GT trades in his usual shrill dissonant fretboard gymnastics for a more heavyset, power chord driven style of riffing. The quickly dished palm muted grooves evoke that previously mentioned 90's modus operandi with a lot of chugging, syncopation and that general heavy bounce that permeated the decade.
But make no mistake, the metal and hardcore riffs aren't necessarily indicative of a rudimentary playing style. There is still plenty of very competent chordsmanship to be had. The distorted filigree and metallic modes trickle through the cracks and chugs. Likewise, GT seemingly can't help but leave an air of dissonance within the songs. Tracks like "Modern Ignorance" have a tinge of that sour melody. The downturned notes at the end of the riffs fold in an inharmonious expiration. Meanwhile, there is a melodic borderline that is leaned upon, yet never crossed.
Alas, the final track, "The Flames of Regression," is that token closing sludge track that I hate to see come back into grindcore albums. The song is a standard death metal walk that, while competently played, the song fails to really take off. This closing track, if we are keeping with Autodafé's similarities to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, is more in the vein of the 2016 EP, Arc. That release of course had Agoraphobic Nosebleed aping southern fried sludge bands, namely Eyehategod. Autodafé, however, lack Katherine Katz's amazing vocal performance on Arc. Prior track, "Sire of Horror" has Autodafé playing a better version of 90's death metal that isn't as bogged down as "The Flames of Regression;" and in fact, it has more of a sense of motivation and charisma in comparison. The band is still stepping back from the grindcore on "Sire of Horror," but it doesn't feel so far out of the way.
Alex Gaudreault's handling of the programming of the drums is fairly naturalistic. The drum track honestly could pass as a live drummer if the album's liner notes didn't refute that. Obviously the band isn't taking cues from other cyber-grind acts that feature blatantly inhumanly fast blast beats. I'd say it's on the level of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's later Agorapocalypse and most modern drum machine utilizing bands such as blog veterans, Vermintide.
The band's noise elements are mostly regulated—yet not strictly limited to—before or after songs. They are more bookended rather than integrated. They are not your typical harsh noise samples like one might assume from a similar act such as Full Of Hell. Gaudreault's prior Twenty9Cult is more of an electronic, industrial, dark wave style of music played over synth beats. In turn, Autodafé's noise intermissions are a little more crafted and not so much grating noise. The brooding ambient noise falls somewhere between the horror and sci-fi classifications.
Zapruder opens with a haunting piece that sounds like a mixture of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre score and the Kola Superdeep Borehole recording. The track "Sadistic Arsonist" starts with something akin to a Silent Hill industrial fog and wraps up with a piece that reminds me of The Shining theme melting into Slipknot's "Tattered & Torn." Likewise, the end of "Calibrate To Dominate" literally sirens into more of that Silent Hill flavored orchestration.
In the grand scheme of Zapruder, the noise elements of Autodafé are pariferial, yet the furnace and phaser noise-scheme is integrated into nearly every song. Just so listeners aren't expecting anything like Insect Warfare's noisecore self-titled coda LP. Zapruder plays like fourteen curated chapters, each offering an independent composition. The encompassing theme of cyber-grind reigns dominant, but Autodafé include a variety of the extreme music subgenres.
I know I mentioned hardcore, among others, as being a significant influence at the beginning of this review, yet I didn't really elaborate on it. The bulk of "Birds of Ill Omen" gives a glimpse into those hardcore influences. Not to mention the two and a half minute "Minefield" is a total metallic hardcore crusher that could be a single for an upcoming release from A389 Recordings. Much like the band's pseudo-model, Agoraphobic Nosebleed and their shifting style of cyber-grind from one release to the next, Autodafé include that fluctuating style fluidly throughout the tracklisting of Zapruder.
Whether this is a one-off album and indeed just a side project to get the boys through hard times, Zapruder is an exceptionally well made album within the usually divisive genre. GT's guttural monotone vocals and guitar genius bring a nice weight and mastery to the album. Meanwhile, Gaudreault is entering into, what I am assuming, is a new genre and he isn't missing a beat—literally. He brings the blast beats, he brings the production and he leaves a healthy handful of what he does in his musical world. Together they bring a fun, unique and, dare I say, catchy addition to Québec's greatest natural export. Plus, it's on Give Praise Records. What else do you fucking want?
FFO: Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Chadhel, Pig Destroyer
Listen to the album: https://autodafebookburner.bandcamp.com/album/zapruder
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