This mini profile originally ran in August 2024 edition of Stereogum’s The Black Market.
“In Resplendent Terror,” the first single from Emasculator’s debut EP, The Disfigured and the Divine, digs into the myths and stories that continue to reverberate today, the ones that feel as though they’re woven into our DNA and helped forge the cultures around us.
“‘In Resplendent Terror’ is from the perspective of ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna (also known as Ishtar),” vocalist Mallika Sundaramurthy writes in an email. “She starts by boasting of her power and her many victories. She is the most powerful deity, above all the gods. She is beloved by her people and feared by those who dare to cross her. She describes in detail how she lays waste to her enemies. I found it interesting while researching her that despite her great power and many victories, she still has much in common with mortal women.”
Sundaramurthy goes on to summarize Inanna and Sukaletuda, the nearly 4,000-year-old myth of the goddess and the gardener who raped her.
She was tired after traveling from heaven and she fell asleep under a tree. The gardener Shukaletuda found her sleeping and raped her, then ran away and hid in a populated city. When she woke up, she was furious and vowed not to stop until she could find and punish him. She sends three plagues to root him out. She fills the wells with blood so no one may drink; she sends storms and floods. Finally, she appeals to her father, the god Enki, who helps her turn into a rainbow. She travels into the sky and finds her attacker hiding in the mountains. There, she enacts divine justice, as she is known for. She knows his death will be an easy end, and that is a given. The worst punishment she will give is that she will make him immortal in shame; that he will be remembered forever as a coward and rapist, and the story told by poets and singers down through the centuries. Here we are today, thousands of years later, sharing it. The story is cathartic for women who have been abused by men. I myself have survived an abusive relationship. Women were never the ones to be blamed. You can be a beautiful and powerful goddess and still be defiled. All rapists at the heart are cowards.
The Disfigured and the Divine isn’t just about Inanna, though, as evidenced by the album cover, which Sundaramurthy painted, depicting the Hindu goddess Chhinnamasta. “Each new song centers around a different goddess and her mythology, mostly Hindu goddesses,” Sundaramurthy explains. “I relate them to my own life experiences and emotions. In them, I found power and inspiration, and I am passing that forward through our music.”
Emasculator’s music is similarly powerful. The brutal death metal quartet caught the ear of the venerable and scene-shaping label New Standard Elite for good reason. The Disfigured and the Divine finds the right balance between brutality, memorability, and instrumental ability, delivering an energetically potent pummeling. Sundaramurthy unleashes a robust arsenal of roars. Guitarists Teresa Wallace and Morgehenna rip through nimbly technical riffs that quickly transform into seismic chugs. And then there’s the outfit’s newest member, drummer Cierra White.
“We had been working with a drummer in the early days of the band but she was unable to commit due to personal reasons,” Sundaramurthy remembers. “We released our first promo, Depraved Disfigurement, with programmed drums, but we always envisioned finding the perfect drummer to complete the lineup. It was by chance we came across Cierra’s videos on Instagram. We wrote her out of the blue and luckily for us she was interested in collaborating! The difference in the writing process is now we are able to write with input from a drummer, which only makes the songs better, and the writing process more natural.”
White gives Emasculator a fluidity and natural quality over the programmed drums of the past. Thus, The Disfigured and the Divine sounds more human, unlocking that classic death metal rise-and-fall where speedy blasts give way to churning riffs and big, thudding slowdowns. Indeed, like all good extreme music, the EP showcases Emasculator’s adeptness at pairing kineticism and connectivity, maintaining a sense of unstoppable propulsion while painstakingly sewing segues together. So, what did it take to get these tracks into shape?
“We all live at a distance from each other, and we communicate online,” Sundaramurthy writes. “We decided that the easiest way to go about writing songs was to work on one song at a time. Guitars came first with riff ideas, selecting only the best ideas and reworking them as needed. Then we arranged the guitars with drums while giving feedback back and forth. Lyrics were being written throughout that process and once the instruments were arranged, I reworked the lyrics to fit and came up with the vocal patterns. Then we continued to polish the tracks until we were all 100 percent satisfied.”
That’s the other impressive thing about Emasculator, how it can juggle the riff logistics of musicians who are spread across the map. Clearly, the four-piece has overcome those obstacles, gearing up to debut as a live unit at Texas Domination Fest in September and nabbing a slot at the Nice to Eat You Festival in the Czech Republic next year. But, of course, no matter the miles between members, it always had to be this way for Emasculator. After all, searching the globe for the few fellow brutal travelers is all part of the death metal experience.
“Brutal death metal is the subgenre of an already very underground genre of music,” Sundaramurthy notes. “Since there are so few musicians making this type of music, it’s natural that we reach out to find like-minded collaborators. We are connected by great passion and love for this often misunderstood style of music. It’s beyond boundaries and languages; it’s universal.” It makes sense, then, that universality would be such an excellent vector for exploring the stories and myths at the heart of our humanity.