Decrepit Birth-Polarity

Decrepit Birth has come a long way, and their sound has changed dramatically over time. I was not fully impressed by their previous albums, but I was still very pleased, and now Polarity has fully blown my mind. There have been many great albums released this year, but there haven’t been very many death metal albums quite as inspiring as Polarity. I have been listening to Decrepit Birth since the release of their sophomore album Diminishing Between Worlds. Since then I have been watching them out of the corner of my eye waiting for something amazing to come from them (which turned out to be Polarity). It was also to my surprise that shortly before they started recording the new album, they had signed on to Nuclear Blast Records! They must have done something amazing in order to get signed on to Nuclear Blast. After hearing this album, I am not surprised they got signed on to them. I got stuck listening to this album over and over again for about two weeks straight, and I’m not anywhere near of getting sick of it.

Like I said before, the band’s overall sound and musical style has changed dramatically, and I think Nuclear Blast has something to do with the change, because all of the bands under that record label always have a very different, progressive sound. Also, bands’ sound seems to change when they sign on to Nuclear Blast. Their original style was a traditional Californian brutal death sound that had some technicality in it too. Now, their guitars are not down-tuned as much, the vocals are deeper, and they have entered a realm of metal known as technical death metal (which is not a genre I typically use). I would also like to note that although the album artwork was done by the same guy that did all their other album covers, the cover for Polarity has a lot more bright colors and is more abstract and futuristic looking than all of their other album covers, which had darker colors and more of a simple design.

Ignite the Tesla Coil is the longest song being around six minutes. It is also probably my least favorite song off the album. The guitars could be a tad bit better, and most of the acoustic parts are kind of repetitive. Aside from that, it is a very progressive song and I love the melody during the intro. Metatron is very technical and creative. The vocals and double kick drums are very well done and tight. The Resonance is one of the slower, more melodic songs off the album, which gives you a change in emotion when you are listening to the album. Then they start to speed things up. My favorite song off the album is the title song. It is extremely technical, I don’t know how much more creative it can get, let alone astonishing. The vocals in Solar Impulse seem to be a lot deeper than in all the other songs, which fits it extremely well. This is another one of the more melodic songs with very creative guitar and bass lines. Mirroring Dimensions is probably the most progressive and experimental piece on Polarity. It is very brutal, but then again it is very creative and technical, especially in the drumming. A Brief Odyssey in Time is an interesting song. It is basically a short interlude, but it’s an actual song. My favorite part of that song would have to be the mysterious sounding keyboard parts. The Quickening of Time is very fast, tight, and has great bass and drums. Sea of memories is another progressive and experimental song with the bass standing out. Symbiosis is filled with emotion and creativity. It reminds me of the song Sufferstream by Cipher System. Darkness Embrace is slower and has much more of a darker sound than the other songs. I like the down-tuned guitars and the great piano in the background. This album is amazing and I love it, 19/20.