Hour of Penance - The Vile Conception

I’ve seen this amazing album artwork pop up in numerous places all over the internet, and every time I see it I tell myself to fucking GET IT! But obviously my unfortunate procrastination habits got the better of me and I didn’t bother to get it until a week ago, after TWO YEARS! I know that Italy has always had one of the most prominent and diverse music scenes in the world. Apparently I was wrong in thinking that it has since faded away. Along with tons of folk, rock, neoclassical, jazz, and (most recently) metal artists that have been continuing to blow me away, it’s obvious that I was more wrong than I originally thought. For those of you that aren’t aware of the metal artists that are popping out of Italy these days, you should turn your attention to artists like Dark Lunacy, Lacuna Coil, Fleshgod Apocalypse (my favorite), Deathrow, Depressio Aeterna, Fear of Eternity, Rhapsody of Fire, Sickening, Theatres Des Vampires, Throne of Molok, and Inallsenses. Just a list like that shows that there is definitely SOME kind of music scene going on there; and that’s just a small portion of the METAL scene, wait until you hear the modernized-European folk bands that are coming from there. But we’re here to talk about the Italian technical death band Hour of Penance.

I’m going to tell you that I didn’t find out who the vocalist on this album was until yesterday. And to tell you the truth, I’m not surprised at all. The reason why was because when I listened to this album for the second time, the first thing that came to mind was “there’s SOMETHING about this that reminds me of Fleshgod Apocalypse, but what is it??” Then after my fifth or sixth time listening to it, I figured out that it was the vocalist that sounded a lot like the vocalist from one of my favorite bands, Fleshgod Apocalypse. At that time, I didn’t know that Hour of Penance was from Italy, so I didn’t make that initial connection that a lot of you out there probably made. I then started to hear a lot of similarities in the music between the two bands, especially the explosive blast beat drumming and the ultra-deep guitar chords. So when I looked them up on Spirit of Metal to add them to my bands list, I decided to look at the members because it said their current vocalist had only been around since 2010. And I then saw that the vocalist on this album was none other than Francesco Paoli from Fleshgod. And guess who did the drums, Mauro Mercurio, the one who did the drums on Fleshgod’s 2009 debut, Oracles.

I honestly had no idea that there was a Fleshgod twin out there. But this band obviously isn’t an all-out IDENTICAL twin to Fleshgod, there are quite a few differences. But I don’t think that I should make this review a comparison between the two bands, I want to critique this record by itself, without mentioning Fleshgod Apocalypse every two sentences.

My applause to whoever produced this album because it sounds astonishing and only enhances the listening experience. The thing I love the most is how much fucking volume and BASS the drums have; it only makes the music sound monstrous and apocalyptic (in a good way).  I haven’t heard a tech death album this powerful and angry in…I don’t know how the hell long…a long time! Here’s something I want to tell those of you that have really powerful subwoofers or have extremely powerful (bass-compatable) headphones: the drummer has one of those bars that creates a bassplosion when he hits it. The funny thing is that this is mostly seen in deathcore albums (where it is typically overused), but it sounds amazing and makes me smile whenever it’s hit in this album.

The band is extremely tight and none of the members seem to drift off for even a second. This is one of those few cases where the visualization of having all of the members’ parts being squeezed into the eye of a sewing needle is an accurate description of how tight and together the band is. I love how the guitars are NOT overpowering like they are in almost every other tech death album I’ve heard out there, but there is one problem. Where’s the bass? Of course I can tell that there’s a bass player because I can hear the BASS, but I can’t hear the NOTES that the bass GUITAR is playing. This gets kind of annoying mainly for bass players like me because…I don’t know…if you were a guitarist, wouldn’t it bother you if the vocals and drums overpowered everything else?

This album is unrelentingly brutal and will leave you shattered (if not in pieces) after you listen to it. Although this band has had a lot more attention than I initially assumed, this is still an extremely underappreciated album. I wouldn’t recommend this to people who aren’t quite able to handle REALLY brutal bands like Fleshgod Apocalypse, Nile, Hate Eternal, Whitechapel, and Brain Drill. I would give this flawless piece of plastic 19/20. 

Severed Crotch - The Nature of Entropy

I found these guys via Amputated Vein Records a couple of months ago but never bothered to look them up until a couple of weeks ago. Here’s one thing that really screwed me over, when I see a name like Severed Crotch, the first that comes to mind is some random hilarious grindcore/death grind band. But obviously once I actually sat down and listened to them, I was wrong. Although Severed Crotch wouldn’t be my name of choice for a traditional tech death band, this is one of those cases where the music is so good that the name doesn’t even matter. They could be named “Elephants who like to Fart on Human Babies” for all I care, I would still love them! This is something you NEED to hear because it is amazing.

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of new tech death bands like Slaughtery, Hour of Penance, Slaughterbox, and Carnophage. The thing is, with most of the bands I’ve been uncovering recently, and none of them stick out to me as being totally creative. Of course they all have fucking skills, but Severed Crotch was EXACTLY what I needed (I just realized how perverted that sounds). Here’s the thing with SC (that’s what I’m going to call them), they’re not SUPER brutal, they’re not SUPER technical, and they’re not SUPER fast and chaotic; they’re all of those things evened out at a marginal level. This is perfect for those times where Rings of Saturn and Slaughterbox are just too fucking crazy, and Psycroptic and Atheist aren’t quite brutal enough.

The trait that SC has that won my heart was the fact that everything is tuned really low and that everything is HELLA deep, especially the vocalist (whom I am extremely jealous of). The vocalist! Oh my god, when people ask me what my favorite kinds of vocals are, I usually show them Majestic Beast by Amorphis or something by Opeth or The Faceless; but this guy is now up there as being one of the best and deepest growlers with Demon Carcass and Mikael Akerfeldt. Even his mid-ranges and highs blow me away! There’s one question that this leaves me with, is he this good live?

The songs range from being blasting speeds to slower, headbanging-appropriate tracks. Human Recipes is probably the best headbanging track, having tight, but slow kick drumming that create a thick beat that gets my head going instantly. Ecstasy in Death is definitely my favorite song off of this album. Ecstasy in Death shows SC’s full potential in all areas including the musicians technical skills, creativity, how many genres they can infuse into one song, and how fucking brutal they can get. The brutality level reaches its highest point during the extreme breakdown in the middle of the song, which took me by surprise because I was so used to listening to all of these bands that were trying NOT to add in breakdowns like “most of the other shitty metal bands out there” are. The bassist is crazy as well, especially in Ecstasy in Death. Even though you can’t hear the bassist very well except when he’s reaching higher notes and when he’s soloing; when you listen closely, it sounds like he’s playing the lead guitar part, only you can’t really hear it that well. Some of these tech death bassists just BLOW MY MIND when it comes to the complexity, speed, and utter creativity of what they play. Some of the other notable tech death bassists out there that amaze me come from Obscura, Rings of Saturn, The Crinn, The Faceless, and Embryonic Devourment.

This is now one of my favorite technical death albums AND bands of all-time. This is something you NEED to hear because the name is deceiving, they’re AMAZING! I can’t stress that enough. This album is absolutely positively completely FLAWLESS and can’t be something that I wouldn’t recommend to someone. I would give this album 20/20 for being one of the best tech death albums (and vocalists!!) of all-time. 

Awaiting the Autopsy - Couldn't Tell the Bodies Apart

It was because of these guys that I now listen to Disentomb, Gutted, Bloodboil, Eden Beast, Slaughterbox, Visceral Disgorge, and pretty much the underground BRUTAL death metal world. In other words, Awaiting the Autopsy led me to Amputated Vein Records (whom all except for one of the bands I just listed are signed on to). I know of no background information other than that there’s this one guy I know who’s CRAZY about them for some reason and considers them his FAVORITE band (I still wonder why). I heard this album and I’ve still kept it because I actually really enjoy listening to it. There is one big thing that caused my score of 17/20 to drop to 14/20 (which is hard to do). If you’re curious as to why, read on my friend.

When you play the first track on the record, you get a taste of some of the most brutal music out there with the headbanging (and awesomely named) track Baseball Bat Lobotomy. But that’s not the track I want you to hear first, I want you to first listen to the SECOND song, Backyard Autopsy. The first reason why is because I want you to hear how fucking powerful their drummer is and how much bass they put on the kick drums. The song starts with an EXPLOSION of speed and brutality which then drops down to one of the most brutal breakdowns I’ve EVER heard in my life and then…I’m sorry I can’t stop laughing at the sound that comes out of the vocalists mouth at the end of the breakdown!

I’m serious, WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO MAKE THAT SOUND?? IT DOESN’T SOUND COOL AT ALL! IT SOUNDS RETARDED!! That’s the damn reason why I can’t listen to this album very much is because the shitty vocalist RUINES it! His inhales suck pretty bad as well and sound completely amateur. They seriously need to save the vocalist from Shattered Eyes and have him as their vocalist after they give this piece of crap the boot. This is almost worse than that “EEEEEEE” sound Chris Barnes likes to make.

Thankfully, the sheer brutality and power of the rest of the band (mostly) makes up for the failure (aka vocalist) of the band. If I could, I would love to edit the music and take out the vocal tracks all together because the music on this record is amazing! I’m not joking, this isn’t something that you can miss (if you can just listen to the instrumental parts). The breakdowns have more brutality than the breakdowns of Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, and Here Comes the Kraken COMBINED. Really something that will cause major whiplash to make sure you don’t forget the day you listened to Awaiting the Autopsy.

My compliments to whoever produced this album because it is beyond professional. Except one thing, turn the fucking vocals down. If you’re in the mood for a bass-filled half hour pack of brutality that will leave you in thousands of pieces, this is exactly what you are looking for. Besides the vocalist, this album is amazing. I give this record 14/20. 

Throne of Molok - Impulsive Assault

The Italian progressive black metal band Throne of Molok is certainly one of the most progressive and unique black metal bands to release an album since Dimmu Borgir released For All Tid, where they fused Norwegian black metal with tons of orchestral and symphonic elements. A quick way to describe these guys’ music is that it’s 50% black metal, 44% industrial, and 6% metalcore. I’ve never heard a black metal band in my life that shoved in so much industrial sound into their music. I know there are other black metal bands that do that like Samael and Mysticum, but even they don’t put as much industrial music into their sound as much as Throne of Molok does. But remember, just progression alone doesn’t ensure that the record will be great; it has to be done well and sound good. And in the case of this album, IT SOUNDS GOOD!

The band is excellent at what they do, but unfortunately there aren’t any specific members of the band that stick out to me. I do think the vocalist has a very unique and crisp sound (which makes him lucky because they turned up the vocals really loud) and is even an excellent growler. The drummer’s style is extremely abstract and unfortunately doesn’t fit the music in some parts. The guitarists are fucking amazing, I’ll just say that right off the bat; if I HAD to choose my favorite musician, it would be the two guitarists. The song that really shows what the guitarists are capable of is my favorite song off the record, Nuclear Christ (I love that name!).

There are two basic types of industrial music that I’m familiar with. The first type is the slower, more electronic type of industrial played by groups like Angelspit. Then there’s the type of industrial music that I like most, which is the faster, more chaotic sound with fast computer-generated sounds alternating channels (making it even more chaotic). This is why I love Nuclear Christ so much, because you can hear in the intro that the two completely different types of music fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces. Although Nuclear Christ wasn’t the first song that I heard, Diverting Sea Levels (the opening track) shows that these guys are fucking METAL! The first song is also a great example of the metalcore-style breakdowns that they use occasionally on the record.

The unrelenting fury that is released by these cybergoth metalheads known as Throne of Molok is not going to be an experience that you’ll forget. This album obviously isn’t going to impress everyone because of how extremely unique and different it is from the rest of the metal world. The people that would have an easier time enjoying this record are the Samael fans (for obvious reasons). But even though I’m not a HUGE Samael fan (I only have one of their albums), this is a record that I LOVE and will NEVER forget. I also love the large amount of material contained in this album (15 songs). Being pretty much the most progressive and creative black metal record I’ve ever heard, Impulsive Assault earns my score of 18/20. I will be the first person to buy concert tickets when they come to Seattle. 

Origin - Entity

Origin is a band that I’ve been listening to for years and have seen live once. The thing that caught my eye on this album was that the much-loved vocalist for the New York death grind band Skinless (who recently broke up) is on this album and is now the official Origin vocalist! I mean, the bald guy was great and all, but a guy with vocals as brutal as the long-haired freak from Skinless is EXACTLY what Origin needed to take things to the next level. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it was a lot different than their previous works. The thing that I think helped Origin change themselves was their signing on to Nuclear Blast Records, who is known for giving their bands complete freedom to write whatever the hell they want. Some bands fail to do this successfully (especially if they’re used to being dependent on the record label’s control over what they write), but Origin took advantage of that privilege and created a masterpiece that I own on vinyl (remember those, old guys? They’re those huge black discs that came before cassette tapes that they stopped making in the late 1980s).

The biggest change about this album is that it’s not as brutal as their older stuff. Instead, this is one of the most chaotic albums I’ve heard in my life. Don’t believe me? LISTEN TO EXPULSION OF FURY AND TELL ME THAT I’M WRONG AND THAT I’VE GOT A DUCK SHOVED UP MY BUTT. There are some albums out there that are chaos within the walls of the band, but Origin takes chaos and releases it to the world unconfined to devour the earth. They certainly did so when I saw them live with Hate Eternal, Vital Remains, Abysmal Dawn, and Phalgeron (any of those bands alone would be enough to blow someone to pieces). I knew that Origin is pretty huge, but I had no idea that it was of this magnitude. The utter chaos is almost all in the drummer whose legs can’t possibly be human (aka they’re really fast). When I first heard this album, I asked myself the same question that I asked when I first heard Oracles by Fleshgod Apocalypse: “How many pounds of crack does the drummer take before each show??” Although I would prefer that the bands I listen to be drug free (excluding weed), it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if their drummer takes some kind of stimulant.

There is one big thing about this album that bothers me a lot, and it’s not a problem with the music, it’s with the production. There is WAY too much treble! It’s one of those things that I can only listen to on my computer speakers that have lots of bass (as opposed to my Zune which obviously doesn’t have TONS of bass). I’m fine with this much treble, but only if it’s balanced out with the mid-ranges and bass. But that aside, the music contained on this record won’t melt your face, it will fucking TEAR IT TO PIECES.

I would like the guitars to have more of a gritty, crunchy sound as well because that would make the music that much more relentlessly brutal. The songs are the OPPOSITE of being repetitive and boring. This is one of those albums that have a lot of that high-pitched sweep picking that is seen in many tech death bands, but the rhythm guitars are relatively simple with extremely fast tremolo picking. One thing that surprised me was that the vocalist doesn’t have that really nasty growl that he did in Skinless (probably because he wanted to change things up a bit for himself); it still sounds brutal and dirty, but not quite what I wanted to hear from him.

Although my review of this album may seem mostly negative, the music and creativity behind this record is some of the best I’ve seen in the eight years that I’ve been listening to metal. The musicianship is hard to believe (especially the fact that they’re able to dream up something this complicated). There isn’t much else that I need to say about this other than that it’s one of the best technical death albums I’ve ever heard in my life and that you need to listen to it and fucking BUY IT before the chaos known as Origin consumes the entire planet…which includes you. This is a CLASSIC and should be loved by all regardless of its faults. I would give this a score of 19/20. 

The Faceless - Akeldama

Unfortunately I was too much of a wuss to handle Akeldama when it came out. But now that it’s been almost six years since its release, it’s about time I reviewed it because even though this is a more recent band, this album is probably one of the most important and influential albums in today’s death metal world. When kids of today think of The Faceless, the first songs that usually come to their minds are tracks like Prison Born, The Ancient Covenant, or Coldly Calculated Design. I can admit that even though Akeldama was the first Faceless album that I heard, Planetary Duality was the album I heard by them that made me piss myself. Because Planetary Duality was an album I heard before I even knew about bands like Obscura, Rings of Saturn (who probably weren’t even around then), Brain Drill, and Origin, The Faceless to me was the most technical band of all-time. But even though I’ve been proved wrong by bands like Rings of Saturn and Obscura, The Faceless still remains in my mind to be one of the most skilled and complex death metal bands ever to come into existence (or land on this planet in this case). Planetary Duality is still my favorite Faceless album, but Akeldama has obviously has a HUGE influence on the modern death metal world, especially in the brutal death and tech death areas.

Released under the (at that time) brand new Sumerian Records, Akeldama made it obvious to everyone that there was an underlying hunger amongst the metalhead community for this type of science fiction brutality. This was proved by huge record sales, sold-out concerts only months after Akeldama’s release, and an explosion of other bands following the same general musical style and lyrical themes. But I AM NOT SAYING that The Faceless STARTED this trend because bands have been doing this since Atheist started coming out with albums in the late 1980s. But enough of talking about the background behind this record, those of you that haven’t heard it need to read this review because this album is not what any of us expected.

The opening track shows off the inconceivable speed that can be perfectly obtained by the entire band with lazar-precision. The first couple of seconds of the first track sound just like any other faster-than-average death metal band; that is, until you get more into the song where things start getting really abstract and weird. This is still a song that I have a hard time choking down because it’s still weird to me. Mainly because it changes around so many times (maybe even too many times) that it can actually be hard to keep up with unless you’re really used to this kind of music. The song goes from fast death metal to sort of an Origin-style technical sound with guitar harmonics, leading into complex kick drums and melodic parts and…I give up…I’m not even able to put it into words it’s so complicated, just look up An Autopsy if you think you can handle it. I’ve honestly never heard a band do this before in my life (of course now I have, but I’m talking about when I gave it a second listen two years after its release).

Although most of the rest of the album isn’t quite as overwhelming as the opening track, don’t get the idea that the rest of the songs are boring and uncreative. There are some songs that have less technicality and…nevermind, there’s no such thing as “less/no/little technicality” in this album. That’s probably the reason why I couldn’t handle it when I was thirteen (and still have a slightly difficult time handling it now when I actually put all my focus on the music). BUT THIS IS NOT THAT “WANKERY” TYPE OF TECHNICALITY that is played by bands like Decrepit Birth and Rings of Saturn. This is the type of technicality and complexity that is found in literally every corner and crevice in this band’s music and you find literally every type of technicality that you can think of, which shows creativity that I’ll probably never be able to have.

The fifth track has the Faceless sound that is widely recognized today (aka Planetary Duality). So the two-part Horizons of Chaos (tracks 4 and 5) were probably written last due to the more modern sound they have. I just realized that the reason why this album is too much for some people is probably because it’s so disorganized. The music switches sounds so often and so suddenly that there’s no blending or major organization efforts of any kind. It’s sort of like one of those promo teasers that bands release a couple weeks before they release a new record that’s just 30-second clips from each of the songs blended into one song.

My favorite tracks off of this album are Leica and Akeldama. Leica has one of those slower thrash-based sounds with tons of hidden tricks that the guitarists pull out of their sleeves. I also love Leica because of the ambient keyboards in the background that give it that “sci-fi/alien invasion” type of feel. Akeldama starts out with one of the members (probably not from this planet) speaking in (what could possibly be) his normal non-human voice, warning the humans of how little time they have left to exist. The thing that makes this song the most unique out of the whole album is that it has very profound keyobards that remind me of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (you older guys should know who they are) and that it’s really melodic! That’s the thing that caught me off-guard, I was expecting another relentless brutal track, and what I was given was an experimental atmospheric melodic track that BLEW ME AWAY. This is an amazing album that everyone should listen to (and hopefully respect). I gave this album 18/20. 

Slaughtery - Path-(T)o-Logic

Slaughtery is an underground technical brutal death band from Belgium (although I have them listed simply as technical death). The reason why I’m choosing to write a review on these guys is because they’re one of the ones that have stuck out to me the most out of all of the tech death bands I’ve been discovering over the past few months like Insidious Decrepancy, First Fragment, Dystrophic, Carnophage, Cerebric Turmoil, and many others. This isn’t an album that I listen to a lot but it really comes in handy when I need something technical, but Obscura and Decapitated aren’t brutal enough for the moment. So this is one of those bands that is perfect for you if you’re in need of a brutal death band that is filled with technicality and chaos. And not only that, THEY’RE REALLY GOOD!! I’m actually surprised I haven’t seen these guys on the Summer Slaughter Tour yet! Hopefully that year will come where I see these guys on the roster.

There seems to be an increasing amount of tech death bands that use metalcore-style breakdowns in their music (breakdowns that stick out and aren’t subtle like the ones Dying Fetus do). Bands like that are popping up like daisies which include (but are not limited to) Fleshgod Apocalypse, Rings of Saturn, and The Faceless. Slaughtery is similar to Decapitated in the sense to where most of the technicality lies in the drums. Unlike Decapitated, there is still tons of crazy shit going on in the guitars and bass, but the drums are unbelievably complex and lead to why this is considered one of the most technical bands to some people (probably because they haven’t heard Rings of Saturn). Although not NEARLY as technical or as brutal as Rings of Saturn, Slaughtery definitely stands out to me as being one of the best new tech death bands to reach my ears.

The vocalist does deep guttural inhales with the occasional exhaled screams for the moments of ultra-high tension like at the very end of Chimerism. I usually prefer the vocals to be DEEP guttural exhaled growls (like in The Faceless). But there have been several times where deep inhaled growls are just what the music needs, and this is one of those cases where it works out perfectly. The general theme that this band follows is really hard to pinpoint in this case, but it obviously has some sort of strong sci-fi influence. I feel that I should elaborate more on the type of breakdowns that these guys use because they’re not the type of breakdowns that you would expect. When someone hears the term “breakdown” chances are that they’ll imagine utter chaos that has a sudden EXTREME drop in tempo similar to what you would hear in an older Suicide Silence record. But the breakdowns that Slaughtery uses are slightly less profound than that, but they’re still much more extreme than most bands out there.

What would have made me smile is if the first track, titled 9 Minutes, was actually exactly nine minutes in length. But that’s not something that I’ll point out as a lack of creativity; instead I’ll just throw that out there as a suggestion for a special “9 minute extended version” that they could use as a hidden bonus track on a future record. For me, the first track introduces the chaos, the second track introduces the brutality, the third track introduces the creativity and technicality, and then after the 1.5 minute interlude, the rest of the album has all three of those elements combined in a perfect brutal tech death sandwich (which is great because I’m about to eat breakfast). The sound production is great, but I would like it if the band turned up the treble a bit on the drums and gave them more body, especially on the kick drums (which are very important in tech death). Faults? There aren’t many but the band does drift out of tempo in a couple of songs like The Pal Catharsis. Although not as good as some, this is definitely an album that you should check out ESPECIALLY if you are a sucker for brutal and/or technical death metal. This earns a score of 16/20. 

Element - The Energy

I found Element in one of the most unlikely places. I was flipping through the bands signed on to the Brutal Bands record label on their website and after running my eyes across all of the chaotic illegible logos of bands whose names I probably couldn’t even pronounced, the name “Element” stood out to me. When I clicked on it I was surprised that this wasn’t another apocalypse/gore themed brutal death band. I saw the beautiful purple artwork of the planet that belonged to their most recent album release and I initially assumed that this was another sci-fi themed technical death band following that ever-expanding trend made popular by bands like The Faceless, Obscura, and Origin. I was yet again surprised when I heard their music that they aren’t anywhere near to being considered tech death. The one thing that people seem to like is when musicians and bands keep things unexpended and unpredictable.

I currently just have these guys under progressive death (not that it matters, just my way of keeping my music organized). I guess they would be closer to traditional death metal more than anything else, but yet they have that Augury-influenced atmospheric feel that only a handful of other metal bands have done. I guess a generalized summary of my opinion on this is that this is one of the best progressive death albums I’ve heard since Opeth’s Watershed.

The opening track isn’t what I would consider to be a full song, but not an intro either. The reason why is because most of the song is taken up by an indescribable tone of atmosphere and ambience that for some reason PERFECTLY sets the mood for the rest of the album. It then blends into a weird sounding guitar part that reminds me so much of Augury which leads into the full lineup of the band showing you that they can do things no one else has even thought of. The music that takes up the end of the first track is really abstract and has an extremely odd tempo with the bassist playing something that seems like a completely different song. Vexed is the next song that then introduces the vocalist’s demonic exhale growls that give the music its dark sound.

Whoever did the production and mixing on this album is a master. This is one of those albums that would sound like complete monkey poop if it had low production and sound quality. There seems to be almost no treble at all, with the rest being taken up by overpowering bass and mid-range. I haven’t come across very many other albums that would sound good with that equalizer setting, but this one definitely proves to be the best. The songs are far from boring; they’re constantly changing but stay simple enough not to confuse the ones newer to the genre. It seems that my love for this album grows more and more every time I listen to it, and I’ve listened to it A LOT. Let’s talk about the individual members.

The bassist is by far the best out of the bunch. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was the Obscura bassist playing a fretted bass. Although unfortunately it’s not, this bassist still deserves huge credit and should not stop what he’s doing. I think that Vexed and Centipede are the two songs that best demonstrate the bassist’s skill and talent which is actually better than I am able to describe. The guitarists are beyond amazing and are perfectly in synch with each other and the rest of the band. I mainly love all of the different sounds and effects they put on their guitars, especially in Everchanging. I’m not going to spend time describing the drummer’s style because the best way for you to understand his playing is to just listen to this record.

Here’s something for all of you power metal fans: listen to the last song on the album, Dreaming Forever, and tell me that it doesn’t have some kind of power metal influence somewhere in it. If there was singing on this song instead of growling in this song, it would make a great HEAVY power metal song! There aren’t any huge faults…or any faults at all that I can think of. Although the pros of this album are HUGE, they aren’t enough to earn a perfect score from me, because there is still room for a lot of improvement, especially in the vocals because they can get annoying when he’s screaming. I would give this album 18/20 and would recommend it to EVERYONE.

Insidious Decrepancy - Extirpating Omniscient Certitude

Insidious Decrepancy is a one-man technical death band that has continued to amaze me ever since I first saw “them” live in 2010. Although solo in the studio, there is a drummer present during live shows (for obvious reasons). Some would assume that the sole member uses a drum machine in the studio like Purtrid Pile, but he actually plays a real drum set! I mean, tech death by itself is hard enough to play on just one instrument; but to be able to play it on guitar, bass, vocals, AND drums?? That’s something that even I have a hard time believing. So I found this record a couple of months ago and it’s one of the most traditional (or “generic) tech death albums I’ve heard so far (yes, I know about Psycroptic, Origin, Necrophagist, Brain Drill, etc.). But since I have yet to be “worn out” by the generic technical death sound, this is a record that I have had the pleasure to thoroughly enjoy.

The production quality is exactly what I would expect from an underground death metal (of any kind) band. Not as much bass as I would like to hear (you know I’m a stickler about that), but at least there’s not a complete absence of it, so it’s understandable. The drums sound shitty unless you go see them live, the kick drums sound more like clicking rather than that powerful booming punch that I like to get bombarded with. In most of the underground death metal albums I’ve heard, there seems to always be one or two songs that use the same guitar riff for the entire song that gets annoying very quickly. This has even happened in some albums released by bigger name bands like Committed from Origin’s 2011 album, 10,000 Sermons, 1 Solution from SWWAATS’ 2009 album, and some others that I can’t think of at the moment. The song that bothers me the most on Extirpating Omniscient Certitude is the guitar/bass riff that takes up the majority of the first track. Thankfully, it doesn’t take up the entire duration of the song.

Other than that, Extirpating Omniscient Certitude (say that five times fast) is filled with some of the most complex creativity I’ve ever heard come out of a single person’s head. It’s more understandable when there’s an entire band involved writing unimaginably technical music (like Obscura, Rings of Saturn, Arsis, etc.), but having one single person come up with just about all of it is pretty wild. This very tall and very skinny metal musician is someone that doesn’t deserve the amount of attention that he’s been getting. But then again, maybe he’s perfectly satisfied and happy right where he is in the underground world (I would be happy there as well to be honest). But in the underground world, everyone knows the name Insidious Decrepancy (or has heard the name at least once). Because someone with this much talent and musical skill should be replacing famous and less-deserving bands like Emmure, Chelsea Grin, Job for a Cowboy, and Meshuggah.

The vocals aren’t my favorite thing about this record. It’s almost assumed that an underground death metal band uses inhaled vocals. Well, just like most of the other underground brutal metal bands, Insidious Decrepancy uses…wait for it…INHALED GROWLS, how surprising! But that’s not the thing that REALLY bugs me, the thing that really bugs me is that they don’t sound that good…at all. I do think that inhaled growls is what this album requires in order to have the best sound (which happens in several situations, nothing wrong with that), but this album calls for deeper, more guttural growls rather than a semi-pig squeal with some body. Other than that, this album is very impressive.

Although this is nowhere near being my favorite tech death band/album, this is something that I would recommend to you. But here’s a disclaimer: the people that will get the most enjoyment out of this are the people that are already very familiar with the technical death genre and plenty of it’s more famous bands (Arsis, Obscura, Decapitated, The Faceless, Decrepit Birth, The Black Dahlia Murder, etc.) and a good share of the genre’s underground scene (Rings of Saturn, Embryonic Devourment, Dystrophic, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Brain Drill, etc.). I would score this album 16/20.

Katatonia - Night is the New Day

I guess that since I’ve just been listening to Katatonia and other similar bands like Opeth, Before the Dawn, Porcupine Tree, and Sirenia, that it’s time that I shared my opinion on one of my all-time favorite albums. I initially intended on writing this review after I saw Katatonia live in October when they opened for Opeth, but I guess I forgot to follow through. Katatonia and Opeth (my favorite band) are “brothers” (from the same country, best friends since the early years, probably even went to school together). There are very few other examples of bands with relationships like this; the only others that I know about are After Forever and Epica, Bring me the Horizon and Architects, and INSERT. Mikael Akerfeldt was the original vocalist for Kataklysm until his (at that time his side project) Opeth started taking off and he decided to leave Kataklysm to focus on Opeth. But obviously there were no hard feelings at all between the two bands because they still tour together and even have had some members work together in Bloodbath.

Here’s a disclaimer that I need to throw out there before you assume that Katatonia is one of my favorite bands. I actually like this album more than the band. It’s because Katatonia has only released two albums that have truly blown me away (this one and the one preceding it). I’m not sure what clicked in the band’s head that caused them to jump from slightly above average music to releasing two of the best albums I’ve ever heard. That’s why I’m glad that this album was my first impression (although The Great Cold Distance would have done just as well). If Katatonia can continue on to consistently release albums like their past two, my opinion on the BAND will soar.

As simple as their music seems, I’ve had a nearly impossible time categorizing this band and feeling that it’s accurate. I currently have them under gothic metal because the other bands I have there sound more similar to Katatonia than any other bands. But then again, when I have trouble deciding where to put a band, I just put it under one of my progressive genres (progressive metal/black/death/rock). But not that it actually matters at all, I just like to keep my music organized so that when I’m in the mood for a certain kind of music (like something really heavy and bombarding but with a black metal feel) I can just click on that genre (black death) and have it shuffle all of the songs I have categorized there.

But enough about that stuff, I’m here to talk about the album, am I not? If someone were to ask me what musician stands out the most as being the absolute best, I would quickly respond with THEIR SINGER! Their singer has one of the most paralyzing and beautiful voices I’ve ever heard in my life. Just listen to any of the damn songs off this album and you will understand (and most likely agree with) what I say the instant his voice makes contact with your eardrums. The vocal harmonizations leave me speechless and have brought me (literally) to tears and always cause a huge smile to form on my face. I know it may seem like I’m over exaggerating and “gushing” over this album, but remember, everyone has music out there that stir emotions of that much strength; it’s almost always different for everyone, this just happens to be one of the few bands out there that make that emotional connection with me.

The overall sound of everything on the record couldn’t be any more perfect. There is tons of bass, the guitar distortions are extremely heavy and thick, the drums work as the skeleton of the music without overpowering anything, and the guitar solos rise above everything with extreme precision to be heard by all. The guitar distortion is very meaty and even has a bit of a mushy sound although you can tell there is a lot of crunch. I guess a mostly accurate description of the distortion that the guitars have is if you have a very crunchy distortion and slice off the high end/treble. The drummer uses a bass boom that I didn’t know about until I played Forsaker with my subwoofer hooked up to my computer. Thankfully the band doesn’t overuse this bass tone like other bands tend to do (i.e. Emmure, BMTH, Element, etc.)

The song that got me completely hooked was the first track. I was expecting something extremely mellow and controlled; kind of like Damnation by Opeth. But obviously I was wrong when I was crushed by the extremely heavy breakdown used as the intro. But it then instantly transitions into more of what I was expecting, but so much better that I can’t even begin to accurately describe. As their singer’s voice pierces the air I realized that I wasn’t prepared for something this good, but I didn’t have the motivation to press the stop button on my keyboard. The chorus was the thing that leaped out of my computer speakers and spherically encircled me with an atmospheric and depressive wall of sound that I will never forget. That was the only song from that album that I listened to for almost a whole month because I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle the rest of the album. The guitar solo in that song left me completely dumbfounded and utterly confused that I hadn’t been shown this band before. I forgot to mention that I’ve known the name Katatonia for years, but I’ve only known their music for a little over half a year.

Like I had predicted before, the paralyzing melodic beauty doesn’t stop until the record is finished. Literally every mood I can think of is covered at least once for the duration of the album. Some of those moods that stand out to me the most are anger, depression, grief, happiness, peace, relaxation, confusion, pain, and numbness. This is a record that should not be passed up by ANYONE whether they like music or not. When they played Idle Blood, July, and Forsaker live (all the songs I wished for) when I saw them last October, I was hooked and have been since then. I would give this a perfect score and would recommend this to anyone and everyone whether I know them or not.