“Raaaah! Aaaaaaaaaah! Raaaaaaaaaayaaaaaaah!” French producer Gautier Serre, aka Igorrr, starts off his 2017 album with three hysterical quivering shrieks that segue into a headbanging death-metal crunch, courtesy of Teloch from Mayhem and drummer Sylvain Bouvier. Over it all, vocalist Laurent Lunoir emits a phlegm-flecked ranting burble—like chipmunks being devoured by piranhas, or vice versa. Serre, who’s also part of the death-metal band Whourkr, has been releasing Igorrr material for 13 years, and Savage Sinusoid (Metal Blade) continues what is by now an expected tradition of unexpected what-the-fuckery. Severed segments of Baroque keyboard Bach bits, metal riffs, electronic glitch spasms, and polka (yes, polka) are stitched together into a crazy-quilt collage of fearsome silliness. Igorrr’s hyper goof-metal has some precedents—Sleepytime Gorilla Museum comes to mind—but it’s hard to think of anyone else who combines such disparate elements with such concussed grandiosity. The five-minute “Opus Brain,” for example, smooshes together Aphex Twin-like blasts of beats with opera vocals from Laure Le Prunenec and throws in distorted psychedelic atmospheric film music; it sounds as if Ennio Morricone grabbed a bagful of electronics and used them to mug Queen. Watching Serre and his associated assemble their cracked songs live is sure to provoke giggles, gasps, and joyous headbanging. v
Tue 2/6, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State, $18, $16 in advance, 17+
