The Faceless-Planetary Duality

The Faceless is not only known as one of the best Californian death metal bands, they are known as one of the most progressive and inspirational metal bands of modern times. The first thing I think anyone would say is that the album cover is pretty damn cool. Planetary Duality has been successful enough to bring this young band to very high standards, enough to get them on the Billboard 200 list. But just because they’re really popular and are selling a lot of albums doesn’t always mean they’re good. I usually don’t pay attention to a band’s success because that factor usually has no meaning to me, so I don’t waste my time paying attention to that stuff. But this album has amazed me; I had no idea that musicians could do some of the things that these guys have done.

The first thing that I would like to note is that I hate it when the kickdrums are too high pitched; I like it when they have a deeper sound, and the sound of the kickdrums in this album is just a tad bit too high pitched for my taste. Aside from that, the band’s music is very fast, and extremely creative and technical in every way possible. There isn’t any part of Planetary Duality that is in the least bit repetitive. One thing I would like to point out that I have never heard before in any kind of death metal is the songs that use the vocoder in parts. It really gives the music a really futuristic, science fiction sound that really impresses me. There are a few songs that have some really cool acoustic parts that give the song somewhat of an ambient sound. The vocalist’s growl has a very solid, strong sound that shows that he has practiced and worked on it a lot. The whole band is extremely tight, and it shows very strongly that band has practiced a lot.

The first song has some of the fastest guitar trembelo picking I’ve ever heard. The song is astonishingly fast, the band is extremely tight, and the vocoder used in several parts of the song gives it a futuristic sound. XenoChrist is, once again, amazingly fast, and it also has some of the most technical drumming on the whole album. Coldly Calculated Design is my favorite song that has the vocoder vocals in it; it’s the song where I think the sound of the vocoder fits the song the most. My favorite song by The Faceless is The Ancient Covenant. My favorite part of the song is the astonishing bass intro. The song is fast at many parts, the bass stands out throughout the whole song, and the vocoder used at the end gives it the magic finishing touch. This album is astonishing. I can’t wait for the The Faceless’ next masterpiece. This album deserves 18/20.