Foreboding Ether - Beyond Conjecture [EP]

Foreboding Ether is one of the newer technical death bands on the scene. Not only are they one of the newer ones, they’re also one of the better ones. With their 6-song EP titled Beyond Conjecture, Foreboding Ether shows that they have skill, talent, room for improvement, and a surprisingly large potential. What Beyond Conjecture offers is exactly what many music critics and fans look for. Foreboding Ether shows their understanding of complexity in death metal as well as the need for their own unique sound. But Foreboding Ether also does a few amateurish and slightly immature things in their music, which is exactly what I want to hear. Why?

Anyone can hear in Foreboding Ether’s music that they have capability of crafting something FAR better and more mind-blowing than Beyond Conjecture. And because of that, it makes it easier to write a follow-up album that not only sounds 100 times better, but actually is 100 times better and more mature. This is exactly what Whitechapel, Miss May I, Rings of Saturn, Dark Tranquility, Scar Symmetry, and many other metal bands did. They released good debuts (some better than others) that, although good (ok sometimes great), showed several premature characteristics that were soon swept off the table by a sophomore album that were so go that sometimes ended up in giving the bands their big break (especially in the case of Dark Tranquility and Whitechapel). But in the case of Foreboding Ether, what are the good things and the drawbacks?

The drummer is fantastic. The techniques he uses and the wide variety of patterns he lays down show immense effort and potential. It’s actually great NOT to hear a tech death drummer playing with constant blinding speeds and seemingly random patterns. It’s also great to have a drummer doing more than just the traditional djent patterns and tempos that have come to be overdone by too many bands. The drums are clearly audible, but never overpowering, which is always a good thing in this type of music. The way the snare drum is set brings out the technicality of the blast beats during songs like Tunabhuna. During some of the more complex moments that take place in songs like Fore20 and Deadline, the guitarists and bassist display one of the best jobs of staying tight with the drums that I’ve ever seen in a band this young.

Before I get into details, I would like to say that both of the guitarists are fantastic. The one thing that people might have a problem with on this particular EP is that the guitarists don’t reach their full potential. Hopefully, this is something that will be done on their next record, because any experienced music critic should be able to tell, just by listening to this, that every single member in the band (including the guitarists) have the potential to create something far better than Beyond Conjecture. But even though that is true, the guitar work on this record is full of a variety of different flavors that are sure to be a treat to the ears. One of my favorite things about this EP is the guitar work. Although the guitar harmonizations during the extremely technical parts are good, it’s more so the composition and style of the guitar technicality that I love. Because I don’t know very much background info on the album and band, I can’t exactly tell who’s doing what, so I’m going to assume that both of the guitarists are taking turns soloing. Why? Because all of the solos are fucking great. I love hearing some slower, melodic solos here and there with a mix of fast and slow shredding moments.

The vocals are where things get a little more in the gray area. There isn’t really anything about the vocals in particular that seem to stick out. They aren’t shitty, that’s for sure. But they’re nowhere near what someone would consider to be top-notch. The main vocalist is occasionally accompanied by the bassist. Something that could be considered somewhat unique about the vocals on this album is that there aren’t any super deep growls. About 80% of the vocals are mid-ranged growls and high-pitched screams.

Foreboding Ether offers a surprisingly pleasant piece of music with Beyond Conjecture. My personal favorite from this album would most definitely be House of Cards. The arrangement, wide variety of solo types, and the non-traditional breakdowns that are used just channel all of the energy into me. But then, there really isn’t a single song on here that I would consider to be terrible. Foreboding Ether’s Beyond Conjecture EP is a treat to any fan of technical death, deathcore, and progressive death. I would give this one 15/20. I will be looking forward to hearing their debut full-length. 

Gorgasm - Orgy of Murder

Ever since I first really got into the whole brutal death and grindcore scene, Putrid Pile, Cephalotripsy, Disgorge, Defeated Sanity, and Gorgasm are among the band names that keep popping up. Although I’m not a fan of all of these, they all seem to be a pretty big deal. So since Gorgasm was one of the ones I didn’t look up immediately those years ago, so I decided now was a good time. The majority of the big dogs in the realms of slamming brutality seem to each have their own special uniqueness about them (i.e. Nile, Hate Eternal, Devourment, Aborted, Defeated Sanity, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Guttural Secrete, etc.), which is probably the reason why they’re more successful than the average band of their genre. But you can’t have bands like these without a strong set of generic bands that stick to the traditional style of the genre. That’s where the leading bands like Pathology, Putrid Pile, and Disgorge come in. After listening to Orgy of Murder several times, it’s become apparent that Gorgasm is part of the leading group of generic brutal death metal bands.

Formed in 1994, Gorgasm have released three albums, each under a different label, since 2001. After releasing two albums that got them some publicity, the band split-up in 2006. After disputes were settled and some lineup changes occurred, the quartet inked a deal with Brutal Bands Records and released their long-overdue third full length release, titled Orgy of Murder. Thanks to the publicity that their second album brought them, Gorgasm’s third release proved to be a success and received generally positive feedback from both fans and critics alike. And, to be honest, when you compare it to all the other average brutal death records out there, this is a pretty fucking solid record.

The overall sound of the album has a lot of positive qualities, but there are quite a few things missing that would really bring up the brutality. Probably the most profound positive quality that Orgy of Murder carries is the fact that you can hear EVERYTHING clearly. There’s never a time where one of the instruments becomes dominant and covers everything else up. This is good, but it doesn’t give the music enough texture and variety to keep things interesting. Part of the reason why I love Cerebral Bore’s Maniacal Miscreation so much is because while you can hear everything, the guitars tend to cover up most of the bass, and then everything will go silent while the bassist bangs out a really cool fill while he’s exposed. That kind of texture and variety in dynamics keeps the music interesting. As attractive as it sounds, being able to hear everything all the time causes the music to get old fairly quickly.

The guitarists aren’t anything super special, but they do play some pretty catchy solos and really cool harmonizations like at the end of Exhibit of Repugnance. The bassist plays with a style that’s more commonly found in technical death than in traditional brutal death. This occasionally gets to the point to where the music has much more of a technical vibe to it. This technical vibe is increased by the fact that the guitar distortions aren’t super crunchy and metallic, therefore making the technical riffs sound much more complex than they actually are. As well as the bass, the drums are very complex. And, once again, this is increased by how the drums sound in the recording. A lot of technical bands, in order to make their music sound more complex than it actually is, will turn down the bass of the kick drums, turn down the volume of all the cymbals, and use very little buzz on the snare. To be honest, although the drummer is better than average when it comes to complexity, there really isn’t anything special about him. He does pretty much everything that needs to be done for the style of music he plays, and that’s it.

The vocalist is “unique” in a sense because he primarily does exhales instead of the traditional inhales that most bands of their type do. Are his exhaled growls any good? Eh, they’re ok, but nowhere near being someone that people would consider being outstanding. So although the growls aren’t anything special, they do give the music an interesting and unexpected twist. His sound is average, but I will say that he has some skill when it comes to speed. For example, the vocals on the second track, Dirty Cunt Beatdown, are fantastic. In this song, he shows variety in speed, pitch, and volume. But then again, most of the extremely deep growls are simply back-up growls from one of the guitarists.

Gorgasm have proved their status with Orgy of Murder. Although not the most skilled and creative brutal death band, they most certainly aren’t below-average. What people would probably like to see from them next is some progression. With no major issues, the only one being the monotonous sound of the music throughout the album, Gorgasm brings a basic (but very solid) piece of brutality to the table with bits and pieces of uniqueness. I would recommend this mainly just to the brutal death and death grind community. But if you want to dive into the genre with these guys, it’s not a bad place to start. I would give Orgy of Murder a score of 13/20. 

Arsis - Lepers Caress [EP]

The American technical death masters known as Arsis return with a six-track EP through Scion A/V. Scion A/V has been releasing some pretty badass EPs for the past couple of years from bands such as Revocation, Immolation, Meshuggah, and Wormrot. Having gone through a lineup change, some people were a bit skeptical about the sound of future Arsis releases considering the extreme success We are the Nightmare had. At first, I thought that Starve for the Devil was an extreme success, especially among conservative listeners. It looks like I was wrong, apparently, the rock n’ roll vibe that Starve for the Devil contained upset a lot of fans. It’s understandable how some people can find it unattractive when a really heavy band makes and album that’s not as heavy as their older stuff.

Regardless of whether or not Starve for the Devil was good (I liked it), it’s undeniable that Arsis’ sound took a drastic shift in direction. With the extremely and well…unusual sound of their 2010 full-length, a lot of people have the same question: what will Arsis do next? Well, Arsis has given us a free taste of new material on the Lepers Caress EP. Some bands like to treat EPs like full-lengths and make it as a whole rather than a collection of songs. Arsis made the Lepers Caress EP more as separate songs rather than have them all stand together as a whole. Starve for the Devil pretty much split Arsis fans in half. There are the people who absolutely fucking despise the new Arsis sound, and those that feel that Arsis still has yet to put out a bad record (which is the side I’m on). The Lepers Caress EP ensures satisfaction for all Arsis fans.

That is motherfucking correct, Arsis has gone to a sound that is extremely similar to that of We are the Nightmare! It doesn’t sound like B-sides from the record, but it does share a lot of similarities with it, especially in the guitar harmonizations. There are, though, some traits that originated from Starve with the Devil that have carried over to this one, and that is the melodic element. Without losing any of their extreme amount of technicality, Arsis’s music has gotten more melodic and complex with each release. As well as all that, Lepers Caress brings in some new shit as well.

The majority of the music isn’t quite as fast and chaotic as before. I’m not saying that the new full-length is going to be like this, but the majority of the material on this EP is much, much slower than what I’m used to hearing from these guys. But that’s not to say the complexity and technicality has gone down. Although there are fewer blast beats, the drums still attack with awesome intensity. I’ve never really had a problem with the drummer aside from the less-than-satisfactory playing style on the A Diamond for Disease EP from 2005. So pretty much, the drums are nothing short of flawless. Because the overall tempo of the music has gone down, the guitar solos are less crazy and fewer in number. Instead, blasting drum fills have been replacing the majority of the guitar solos. The vocals are extremely unique as always. They even sound a little deeper than before, often times being layered on top of growls (I don’t think that’s been done since their first album).

Fans of technical death will LOVE this record. It’s fantastic. Although it’s not something that I would go back and listen to nonstop, there isn’t really anything that I can think of to complain about. Since it’s free (thanks to Scion A/V), I would go and download it from them and listen to it, it’ll be worth it. I would give Lepers Caress EP a good score of 16/20. 

Upcoming Reviews

Ok, let's try this again, here are some bands that I would like to review:

Gloryhammer (power metal)
Devourment (brutal death)
Lord of War (deathcore)
Glass Cloud (metalcore)
Gorgasm (brutal death)
Portal (progressive death)
Foreboding Ether (technical death)
Sevendust (nu metal)
Guttural Secrete (brutal death)
Trollfest (folk metal)
Otep (nu metal)
Arsis (technical death)
Merrimack (black metal)
Bullet for my Valentine (metalcore)
Naglfar (black metal)
Municipal Waste (thrash metal)

Craniotomy - Supply of Flesh Came Just in Time

For those of you that don’t already know, Amputated Vein Records is one of the more mentionable record labels in the brutal death and grind scene. Because I’m tired of giving a full introduction of the label, I’ll just say that some of the bands that have released albums through Amputated Vein include Pathology, All Shall Perish, Disentomb, Cephalotripsy, Viral Load, and Visceral Disgorge. Well, the label’s most recent release is the fourth release of Slovakian brutal death band Craniotomy. Having heard some pretty fantastic shit from this label (i.e. Slaughterbox, Disentomb, Relics of Humanity, etc.), I was pretty quick to give this fresh album a listen. Because it’s been awhile since this label put out a record, I thought that this might have been a hidden surprise they were waiting to release. Is Craniotomy the next big innovative band? Do they suck? Why am I asking questions?

Craniotomy’s fourth and freshest release, titled Supply of Flesh Came Just in Time has just about anything you could ask for from a good brutal death record. It’s got low-tuned guitars, inhaled vocals, blast beats, slamming breakdowns, absolute brutality, and a fine piece of graphic artwork to put the icing on the cake. Those of you that just want a solid chunk of brutality, this is something that needs to be checked out. Those of you that are looking for uniqueness…I’ll address that in a bit.

Let’s take a minute and look at the individual musicians for a second. The drums rarely fall out of time, his style is on the generic side, but he manages to keep a few unexpected tricks up his sleeve. The bassist plays with above-average grooves and colorful bass lines. Bassists either playing random low notes or following along with the guitars are way too common in this genre, so it’s refreshing to hear a bassist that can actually do something interesting. The guitarist’s skill doesn’t go above average, but never falls below. The distortion he has on his guitar is extremely edgy and sounds great when he plays those high-pitched harmonics. What’s truly interesting about the guitarist is the non-traditional playing style. The really catchy and groovy riffs that he plays are what give Craniotomy’s sound the small amount of uniqueness they have.

The album kicks off with an eerie intro that slightly grows louder into a driving headbang-appropriate section that’s catchy as fuck. Here’s where things get “interesting” you are introduced to the vocals at the beginning of a groovy breakdown. I actually thought that this was going to be really good…until those vocals came in. The vocals are not only uninteresting and monotonic, they fail to show any sort of anger or power. I would imagine that, in a record as brutal as this, that you would want the VOCALS to be brutal too. But no, this guy sounds like he’s snoring. We need to hear more dynamical variety, different pitches, and more of a powerful sound. One of the reasons that I love bands like Cerebral Bore and Guttural Secrete so much is because the vocals sound unique, powerful, varied in pitch, and just plain fucking brutal! In other words, the vocals bring the energy of the music way down. I can tell that all the vocalist is trying to do is get out the deepest sound possible. Although he is doing a good job at letting out some fucking deep inhales, it doesn’t provide any positive contributions for the rest of the band.

Other than that one letdown, to those of you expecting something super innovative, this isn’t for you. For the hardcore fans of slamming brutality, have at it. Craniotomy provides brutal death that’s more on the groovy side. Nothing more, nothing less. Are these guys shitty? Not in the slightest bit. So yeah, I would only recommend this to the brutal death fans and give it a score that lies right in the middle of the spectrum, making it not lie in a positive or negative area with a 10/20. 

Dave Lombardo Not Part Of Slayer’s Australia Tour; Releases Statement

Dave Lombardo Not Part Of Slayer’s Australia Tour; Releases Statement

Strychnia - The Anatomy of Execution

Just like Rings of Saturn, A Past Unknown, and plenty of other young metal bands out there, American thrash death band Strychnia have been taking advantage of social media to get their music out there since the release of their debut in 2011. From the looks of it, Strychnia seems to be doing pretty fucking good with all of the worldwide attention they’ve been getting on the internet’s biggest social media sites. Like other music lovers out there, I get fucking bombarded with tons of metal and rock bands out there telling me to “check out” their music. Well, I discovered Strychnia on Twitter, and after witnessing the same type of extreme hype that I saw with A Past Unknown, I decided to check out their debut that they had up for listening. Everyone knows that a lot of those bands out there on the net are just plain shitty and don’t really have any future; Strychnia is NOT one of those bands. This is the kind of quality, talented, skilled, and top-notch music people are looking for! Everything from the production quality to the vocals has just continued to impress me.

Strychina plays the same basic type of metal that DevilDriver, Sadus, Revocation, Swashbuckle, and Cavalera Conspiracy play. It’s that mix of thrash metal and death metal that has an end result of a death metal sound with sort of a rock n’ roll feel; some groove. That groove can be traced back to both old school and modern thrash metal bands like Bonded by Blood, Testament, Anthrax, Exodus, Death Angel, Metallica, Overkill, and Tankard. Although unlike Cavalera Conspiracy and Revocation, Strychnia has a much, much heavier and less melodic sound that is more similar to that of DevilDriver.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about thrash metal, it’s that the sound of the drums can make a big difference. Of course, what truly matters is how good the drummer is, but that’s not really much of an issue in this case. The sound of the drums on this album couldn’t be more perfect. They sound exactly like the ones on Bonded by Blood’s fantastic debut, Feed the Beast. The way everything sounds so fucking thick with a lot of bass and mid-range and little treble helps bring out the brutality. This also helps bring out the intensity of Strychnia’s death metal side. Except the different between the drums on this album and the ones on Feed the Beast is that the ones on Feed the Beast don’t have NEARLY as much reverb as the drums do on the Strychnia record. But seriously, in all honesty, even though the drummer’s style, skill, and obvious talent make all the difference, the way the drums sound on here just absolutely brings everything up.

The distortion of the guitars blend extremely well with the way everything sounds. They don’t have too much of a high-pitched crunch and they aren’t too metallic sounding (like a lot of bands recently), they’re just right. After listening to a lot of thrash metal yesterday, I’m noticing that the type and amount of distortion that the guitars have is very similar to a lot of thrash metal. This is, therefore, only expanding their thrash metal sound and influence even more. Except the way the different guitar parts are layered is slightly more complex than your average thrash metal sound, which is where the obvious complexity of death metal plays a part. But one of the things that I end up enjoying the most about Strychnia is the vocals.

Death metal vocalists that have a large pitch range are hard to come by these days. In response to that, some people might immediately point to a lot of the deathcore vocalists that are big right now. Ok, many of those are good vocalists, but normally, they do one of two things: they either only do the polar opposites (deep gutturals and high-pitched screams) or stick to a general range. This is true for death metal vocalists all across the spectrum, whether it be tech death, brutal death, death metal, or melodic death. Just to list of a couple examples, the vocalist for The Black Dahlia Murder is fantastic, but 90% of the time, he does the same high-pitched shrieks, occasionally doing some mid-ranged growls. The vocalist for Kataklysm and Ex Deo rarely does anything beyond those vicious growls or those ear-splitting screams. And of course, there are countless bands that only do one type of vocal style. All of this is fine, and is often times more than appropriate for the musical setting, but more than often, variety is what’s best. Bands like Lamb of God, All Shall Perish, Cattle Decapitation, and Opeth all have vocalists that do whatever they can to keep things as interesting as fucking possible.

The vocalist for Strychnia performs vocal styles that go all across the board. This tends to be typical for a lot of thrash death bands because of the non-traditional sound of the music. DevilDriver, Gojira, Hatesphere, and Revocation all have vocalists that, although some are better than others, have the capability to perform a wide variety of pitches. The first thing you hear out of the vocalist’s mouth after the intro track is a high-pitched scream similar to that of All Shall Perish. Throughout the duration of the album, you hear shrieks, mid-ranged growls and screams, nasty yells, and some of the best growls that I’ve heard in years out of a brand new band. On top of that, everything that the vocalist does shines with experience, care, skill, and talent. This is what the biggest surprise to me has been, because there are plenty of bands that, as a whole, are great, but individually, each member seems to have a bunch of issues. I have a very, very hard time pointing out issues within the individual members.

I’ve saved the issues that I have for last. The biggest issue is that, although the band’s sound is extremely unique, I get the feel that, as a whole, the album sounds like the same song, but dragged out. There are cases (usually in traditional death metal) where this is perfectly fine, but unfortunately, this isn’t one of them. When I listen to my favorite thrash death or thrash black albums, I don’t feel that all of the songs blend together into one big wall of awesome; I feel that each song is an individual block that differs from all of the other “blocks” in the wall of awesome. All of the songs have groove, they have slightly different structures, but they’re too similar. To be honest, this is PERFECT, because this leaves room for improvement that Strychnia can fix in later releases. Because a roadblock that some bands run into is creating a flawless debut, therefore making it THAT much harder to create a follow-up album that’s even better after setting the bar so damn high with their debut. A great album will only create higher expectations and standards for the next one. The Anatomy of Execution has set the bar up, but not impossibly high.

One of the newer thrash death bands, Strychnia, is also one of the best. This is the type of band that will be headlining tours three to four albums down the road. This is a band that, although very young, not only expresses extensive skill, practice, experience, and talent, also expresses some of the highest potential I’ve ever heard out of a new band. I would recommend this to metalheads that are looking for something, fresh, professional, serious, and all-around fun to listen to. In other words, The Anatomy of Execution gets my high score of 18/20. 

Blizzard at Sea - Invariance [EP]

Blizzard at Sea is part of the wave of progressive bands that have been pulling influences from sludge metal, black metal, hard rock, metalcore, atmospheric rock, doom metal, classic rock, hardcore, post rock, and other various progressive genres. This movement, which has been led by progressive rock band Isis, is considered by some to be one of the most unique metal progressions of all-time. Now, we have another band that can be considered part of this movement that has released a four-track EP titled Invariance.

Because this isn’t being written by someone who knows a lot about this type of music (some call it “atmospheric sludge”), don’t expect to see a lot of historical shit and factual information about influences and other bands. Instead of educating you about the genre and the band, I am going to specifically lay out why this EP is one of the best pieces of progressive music I’ve heard since I started listening to heavy metal. I also believe that this record could also possibly be appealing to those that aren’t fond of sludge metal and it’s different variations in general (like myself). That aside, as always, I’m going to treat this like just about every album I review; so let’s get to it.

Probably one of the most interesting of Blizzard at Sea is not the complex song structures, but more so how everything is layered. One can’t exactly know for sure if this was intended unless they ask the band themselves, but seemingly without turning down any of the instruments, there are parts where a single member sticks out from the others. For example, there are certain parts where the drums are a bit overpowering, and then the guitarist will play a chord that just rings out with so much intensity. When this is happening, you can tell that the drums aren’t playing less or with less volume. It’s an interesting quality that happens in all of the tracks, whether it be unintentional or one of the many feedback tricks invented in the 1970s. And this doesn’t only happen with the guitar, the vocals, bass, and the drums have moments where the rest of the band seems like background noise.

The music itself isn’t very chaotic. It’s definitely loud and noisy (one of the primary characteristics of the genre), but not really thrashy and fast. But all of the experimentation that’s taking place has pulled the band’s sound in a different direction than the traditional slow, thick, heavy, and noisy sound that’s just known as sludge metal. There are parts in all of the songs that have a hard rock feel, especially the intro to Closed Universe. Because I’m not 100% sure what exactly their influences are, I can’t say that I’m completely accurate on this statement, but it sounds and feels like the atmospheric and often times relaxing sound that Blizzard at Sea’s music has is due to influences and inspirations from post rock, black metal, metalcore, and doom metal. But then again, isn’t that what “atmospheric sludge” is? Although there are few bands that have been playing this style of music for quite some time, the majority of the genre’s bands are young, most with only one album or a couple of EPs and demos under their belts.

If you block out the vocals, it sounds like the type of music that would only have singing. But instead, you have primarily mid-ranged growls and yells with a few sung lines here and there. All in all, Blizzard at Sea has not only blown away the atmospheric sludge fans, but have shown me an entirely new sound. The ambient and intellectual darkness that this band has managed to craft has given this EP my score of 17/20.

Absvrdist - Illusory

Upon first look, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about Absvrdist. But once you notice that Lyle Cooper, the legendary drummer for technical death band The Faceless is the drummer for Absvrdist, it completely changes the story. A problem that a lot of people have with grindcore in general is monotony, often times appearing in the drums. Either that or a complete lack of skill in one or more of the musicians. Whether this is just a simple side-project or the next big grindcore act in the making remains unknown due to minimal publicity and the rigorous tour schedule The Faceless has endured since the band released their newest album, Autotheism. Regardless, Absvrdist have given us a unique and creative grindcore treat titled Illusory, which is something that can be deceptive or misleading (therefore causing “illusion”).

Absvrdist seems to be very keen on calling themselves “blackened grindcore.” Being the black metal enthusiast that I am, that seems like a pretty interesting concept considering that, as far as I’m aware of, it’s never been done before (no, Anaal Nathrakh doesn’t count). Because the duet has been so outspoken about this “blackened grindcore” thing, it’s mentioned in almost every review that has been written on the album. Here’s the issue that people are having: yeah, the album is great, but what was that about “blackened” you said? Because I can’t hear any signs of black metal on this album! Ok, maybe that was an exaggeration, but you get the picture. There are obvious efforts at fusing black metal and grindcore during the album. For example, the track Amongst Humans has an atmospheric guitar lead that sounds like something from a black metal album along with low-key black metal-ish blast beat drumming. The guitar line strongly reminds me of Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Wolves in the Throne Room, which is probably (I’ll never know for sure) the song that inspired that particular intro. Besides that, the number of black metal-inspired moments is low.

So, because Absvrdist most likely over exaggerated the true amount of black metal influence this album has, I’m going to treat this just like any other grindcore record. The two members of Absvrdist have played together before in a Texas-based progressive death band called Erzebet, releasing a 5-track EP in 2005. The member responsible for the lead vocals on Illusory is unclear, as are a lot of things about this band. But whoever does the lead vocals (consisting of growls and nasty screams) is good. The screams sound similar to several thrash black bands I’ve heard, sort of having a thrashy sound to them. Many people find these types of screams much more pleasant to listen to, as opposed to the really obnoxious (but often times appropriate) high-pitched shrieks you hear in bands like Wormrot, Gridlink, and the earlier Pig Destroyer albums. The growls aren’t anything SUPER unique, but they fit in well with the surrounding chaos the music creates.

Along with that, there are occasional inhaled grows and very strained yells that, although unattractive, fit in well with the music in the same way the growls do. A good song that demonstrates the contrast between all of the different vocal styles used would be the first track, Repulsive. But the vocals aren’t where all the action is at.

The drums are where 60% of the interesting shit is. Of course, knowing the drummer and his skills as well as I do, I’m not surprised. But the question gets brought up, why grindcore? It’s not anything new that Lyle can play fast, as demonstrated on Planetary Duality and Autotheism. It makes sense that since he’s the type of guy that likes brutal music, he probably needed an escape from all of the progressive and much slower stuff The Faceless has done on Autotheism. So yeah, he probably had a lot of energy for playing fast and chaotic that needed to be released, so him and his friend from Erzebet. But honestly, there’s no telling as to why this grindcore project just popped up out of nowhere. But the whole black metal/grindcore thing makes sense because besides The Faceless, Lyle has been in both a black metal band AND Erzebet, which plays an interesting combination of grindcore, black metal, and death metal.

The drumming sounds like the drumming from The Faceless. This is good because it’s more than just constant blast beats! As much as I love blast beats, they can get old and boring VERY quickly. The drumming is filled with color, creativity, chaos, and experimentation. If it weren’t for the excessive use of the cymbals, it would be difficult to tell that the drums belonged to a grindcore record. Because the drums are interesting by themselves, everything else acts as icing on the cake. Now we move on to member number two, who is responsible for vocals, guitars, and bass.

The bass tends to hang out in the lower end the whole time. There isn’t a whole lot of action going on with the higher strings and playing chords. This seems to be a fairly common thing in grindcore because the guitars tend to be high-pitched (for some reason) and it helps bring out the low-end if the bassist generally plays only lower notes. The bass has a tiny bit of distortion to give it a gritty sound that can be heard on its own in the ninth track, Delusion. The guitars have a fuzzy distortion that blends in perfectly with the sound of the cymbals. There isn’t exactly anything about the guitars (or bass) that I would consider to be special or unique except for one thing. The instruments on Illusory couldn’t be any tighter. The unfortunate thing about grindcore is that, in most cases, one or more of the musicians repeatedly falls out of tempo or screws up in some way. In Absvrdist, it’s the exact opposite; these two guys are true musicians that know what the fuck they’re doing. Obviously, Lyle’s drumming is on-the-spot 100% of the time, and Marlon has proved himself to be a great guitarist and bassist that has both skill and creativity.

Absvrdist is one of the best grindcore bands I’ve heard in months. In fact, one of the best grindcore bands I’ve EVER heard. Although I feel that their “blackened grindcore” description is an overstatement, there are a couple of black metal-inspired sections on the record. Illusory has everything a grindcore enthusiast could ask for: blast beats, obnoxious yells, ridiculous tempos, and less than half of the songs lasting more than two minutes (several tracks being less than 30 seconds). Illusory also has things in store for the people who AREN’T too big on grindcore, including tight musicianship, instrumental skills, influences from other bands and genres, much more than constant blast beats, and a shitload of creativity and experimentation. Illusory gets my score of 14/20. 

Upcoming Reviews

Happy new year. It's 2013, a very appropriate time to make the first upcoming reviews post for the month of January! Here are some bands that I might or might not review:

Strychnia (thrash death)
Trauma (death metal)
Gutted (death grind)
Beherit (black metal)
Cannibal Corpse (death metal)
Foreboding Ether (technical death)
Absvrdist (grindcore)
Firewind (power metal)
Asphyx (death metal)
Murder Construct (death grind)
Pierce the Veil (screamo)
Varg (thrash black)
Arsis (technical death)
Insomnium (melodic death)
As You Drown (deathcore)
Altar of Pain (death metal)
Sabaton (power metal)
Hellraizer (death metal)
Inhume (death grind)