Pillory – Scourge upon Humanity (Review)

This is the third album from one-man US death metal band Pillory.

Across 64 minutes, the artist behind Pillory batters and bewilders the listener with an onslaught of technical death metal. Scourge upon Humanity clearly won’t be for everyone, even just from that description alone, but I can also see it having a somewhat wider appeal than that of purely your hardened techdeath fanatic.

The songs tread a fine line between technical wizardry and groovy accessibility. In fact, I’d say that for a very long album of this type, Pillory’s latest release is remarkably listenable. Assuming you’ve built up your techdeath tolerances, of course. If you have, there’s much to enjoy here as you explore the album’s labyrinthine twists. We even get treated to some melody and an occasional atmospheric section, as well as a decent amount of progressive metal instrumental workouts.  In other words, there’s enough diversity and musical differentiation to justify an album of this duration.

There’s ridiculous ostentation and showmanship aplenty, but thankfully this is offset by enough pure brutality and songwriting smarts to ensure that the music on Scourge upon Humanity never becomes an impenetrable mess. It takes time to fully reveal its secrets, but it’s worth it when it does.

This is one for aficionados of modern technicality to feast upon gleefully.

Highly recommended