Technical death metal – Page 42

Embryonic Devourment – Reptilian Agenda (Review)

Brutal and Technical Death Metal from the US.

Oh but this is a quality blast. Reptilian Agenda is interesting and inventive Death Metal, with all kinds of rhythms and creative moments. The songs are alive with reptilian malice and slithering slime.

The band have plenty of technique and their delivery is flawless. It’s instantly apparent that this is not run-of-the-mill Death Metal and as the album progresses this is confirmed in every song. Like Origin and Cephalic Carnage trading blows; riffs chop and change, twist and turn, only to be devoured by some sudden flare up of technicality and then vomited back up in a hail of brutality. The songs just kill everything in sight.

The vocals are uncompromising growls that also have a wet, fleshy feel to them. The verbalisations of a warm, (reptilian), corpse?

The sound does the music justice and the drums in particular sound immense and provide the glue that holds everything together, even though they appear to be inhabiting a different world to the hugely impressive guitars sometimes, it all holds together.

31 minutes of interesting and spirited brutal music. What are you waiting for?

Soreption – Engineering The Void (Review)

This is the second album from Sweden’s Technical Death Metal wizards Soreption.

With a sound so sharp and crisp you could stab people with it, Engineering The Void erupts from the speakers like a geyser of technicality and blastbeats. This is Tech Death of the highest order.

Soreption play things ultra-precise and fast, and aren’t afraid to introduce new or novel ideas to their songs to make things even more interesting. They also know when to hold back and make the most out of a sexy riff, such as in Utopia.

I enjoy Technical Death Metal a lot when it’s done well. The problem sometimes is that the songs can get lost in all of the blurry speed and mayhem and it can therefore be easy to lose interest. Soreption don’t suffer from this though and the interest is held throughout this superlative release. It should be noted that this doesn’t mean the band play catchy songs; they don’t. The songs have form and substance and are merely composed of technicality and focused precision rather than being ruled and overpowered by them as can sometimes be the case with this style of Metal.

The singer can sometimes be overlooked in favour of the extreme technicality in these kind of bands, so I feel compelled to mention that the vocalist’s output matches the high performance levels of the rest of the group. He has a really strong voice which he uses to great effect, barking out savagery in a crisp, precise way; keeping in with the style of the album.

This is mechanically tight and flawlessly delivered. Technical Death Metal is not everyone’s favourite type of music but if you are partial to a bit of this then Soreption do it better than most. This has real longevity baked into it and is a great listen. Give them a try.

Chaos Inception – The Abrogation (Review)

US Death Metallers Chaos Inception play such a chaotic whirlwind brand of Death Metal that it’s easy to get blown away by and miss out on just how much is going on in these 9 tracks.

Imagine a band like Morbid Angel only with the technicality and speed ramped up to the max. Chaos Inception mean business.

There is a relentless frenzied feeling to this album that is just short of an animalistic, instinctive craving for destruction. Having said that though there is nothing simple about this music; the band seem to have sharpened their attack to a fine point and the guitars in particular show some considerable musical muscle flexing.

It’s easy to like this kind of Death Metal, (assuming you’re a fan of complete extremity in the first place of course), as it just sweeps up anything in its path and dumps it unceremoniously into the grinder when it’s done. The instruments are all played extremely well, presumably by plague-ridden demons, and the album is just a treasure trove of brutal delights.

All of this adds up to an album that has a feeling of savage malevolence and ultra-violence. Chaos Inception will rip off your face and laugh at your misfortune. And they’ll do it at speed before you’ve even noticed.

For fans of real Extreme Metal only; if this is you then this is a must.

Amon – Liar in Wait (Review)

As many of you will know; Amon started out life in 1987 and eventually morphed into Deicide. Now, a mere 25+ years later, we have their début album!

If you are familiar with Deicide then you know the general style here, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Among Us is the first track and sets the scene perfectly; muscular, rhythmic Death Metal with a strong sound and some excellent riffs and leads. I wasn’t sure how good this release would be, but this song instantly set my mind to rest. The remaining tracks follow this trend.

It’s clear that the passion and intensity that Eric and Brian Hoffman have for Death Metal is alive and well. This is not diluted or pasteurised in anyway – this is the real deal. What we get is riff/song-focused Metal that is effortless in its delivery and flawless in execution.

Being a very guitar-oriented album there are solos aplenty. Anyone who has been following my reviews for a while now may have noticed that I’m partial to the odd solo, so you can imagine how much I enjoy this.

The recording and general sound of this album is first-rate, as you would expect. The guitar tone is enough to bring me out in fits of excitement alone as it’s just so damn sexy, and the blazing solos on top of it is like listening to liquid gold.

It’s not all about the guitars of course, vital as they are. The drums are blasted out with passion and technique, and the vocalist is, quite frankly, excellent.

With Deicide being such a high-profile band I can imagine Amon causing a split in opinion between those that love the consistency of a familiar sound done extremely well, and between those who were hoping for something different and are disappointed. I am firmly of the former camp and I just can’t stop listening to this.

Zealotry – The Charnel Expanse (Review)

Zealotry are from the US, and play an ambitious brand of Death Metal that attempts to offer something a little different from the run-of-the-mill USDM hordes.

It succeeds. They kick their début album off in epic style with Avatars of Contempt. A twisting, turning odyssey into the realms of horror; this is a very strong way to open an album and sets the scene perfectly.

Mere brutality is not enough for Zealotry, nor should it be as they are blatantly capable of delivering so much more. And they do; they make good use of eerie melodies as part of their sound and are clearly more interested in creating an atmosphere for the listener rather than just blasting them into submission. They also know when to utilise calmer moments of restraint amidst the Deathly goings-on.

This is a very musical album; one that you could imagine listening to if they released an instrumental version. The vocals are important though and elevate the album higher than would be possible for a purely instrumental version, but for me the emphasis of this album is squarely on the music, and specifically the guitars. These guys know how to play and use their talent to fashion some impressive atmosphere/emotion-based riffing that tells a tale without a single word. The swaying, winding riffs in Decaying Echoes – one gem amongst many.

This is one of those exceptional albums that I particularly enjoy because of the sense of being taken on a journey through the soundscapes to places unknown and sights unseen.

It’s a great feeling when you discover a band that is attempting to do something a little out of the ordinary with a genre, and it’s an even better feeling when they do it well. The Charnel Expanse is a success; now all it needs is a wider audience. Let’s see what we can do about that, eh?

Ferocity – The Sovereign (Review)

Hailing from Denmark, Ferocity play Death Metal with style and skill. This is contemporary Death Metal that combines intricacy, brutality, melody and controlled aggression to get its message across.

There are blastbeats aplenty, but also mid-paced and slower sections showing off The Chug and other assorted riffs that make this album instantly familiar but also most welcome. Relatively diverse, (within the Death Metal genre of course), Ferocity display influences from various different sub-genres of Death Metal without ever being confined to just one of them. Here and there you’ll find elements of modern, US, brutal, technical, mid-paced and hyperblast Death Metal all sharing the same album, and even the same song. In my book this can only be a good thing, especially as in the case of Ferocity it works and doesn’t sound just mashed together.

There are some very nice riffs on this release and some good moments in the songs – a welcome grasp of dynamics by the band of when to go melodic, when to go full throttle, when to ease off, when a solo is required, etc. all within a solid Death Metal framework.

Ferocity live up to their name but are not limited to it – there is more than just blind brutality here and that makes The Sovereign a better album. Recommended.

Years of Tyrants – Leading the Blind (Review)

I believe the appropriate response upon pressing play and hearing the blasting, shredding brutality here is “holy shit”. Their sound is somewhere between technical Death Metal and technical Deathcore. And what a sound it is. Explosive doesn’t do it justice. If you like bands such as Beneath the Massacre and Infant Annihilator then this is for you.

Another French band worshipping at the altar of bruality and being rewarded handsomely by the Gods of Heaviness. One thing this album has in abundance is energy. The kind of energy that makes you want to flail around ripping anything and everything to shreds and then stomping on the remains. Riffs, licks, leads, drums – it all flies past in a blur of bloody fingers and broken drumsticks.

The sheer weight of aggression here is staggering, and thankfully there are strong songwriting skills on display; otherwise this could have been just a mess of riffs and shouting whereas what we actually have is a cohesive, albeit very short release. Too short really. Will we get more? Only time will tell but I for one do hope so.