Album Review: Cystic Dysentery - "Culture of Death"

I like death metal. Old school death metal, melodic death metal, blackened death metal, I like a lot of the shit out there. If there are two styles of death metal I don't usually enjoy, they are technical death metal and brutal death metal. For the readers who don't know what technical or brutal death metal are, don't worry, I'll give you an incredibly brief crash course. Technical death metal is death metal played at a million miles an hour, with a focus on the complexity of the riffs/ drum patterns/ solos/ song structures. In other words, you need to be technically proficient to play it. Brutal death metal on the other hand, sometimes called or compared to slam death metal sacrifices the extreme technicality for sheer unrelenting heaviness. Here is where you find your most downtuned guitars and most gurgled, incomprehensible vocals. Not to say brutal death isn't technical, it's just that technical death metal is on a whole other level of complexity. You can usually judge how brutal a band will be by the illegibility of their logo and how technical they'll be by the amount of sci-fi shit they can pack into their album covers. Alright, lesson over, let's get on with the review.

Cystic Dysentery is a brutal (see logo) death metal band with a technical flare (see alien-like humanoid on cover) from the death metal state of the USA, Florida. They've pumped out their debut album Culture of Death on Deathgasm Records. The technicality really only shines through with the drumming, coming from the wickedly fast double kicks and the occasional face-melting solo.

The band actually blends the two styles together really well. When they want to go warp speed, they can, with buzzaw guitar riffs that fly across the fretboard, and when they want to bring gargantuan pit slams, they can turn on a dime and dish out slow, heavy, and thick as fuck riffs that make you want to stomp your feet in the pit and make wiggerish arm movements while wearing an oversized basketball jersey and a snapback. The riffs themselves aren't anything we haven't heard before from the likes of Dying Fetus, Cattle Decapitation, and Aborted, but hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it? I enjoy the solos that crop up on the album, because even though they tend to exist only to show off the guitarist's mad skills, there are some sweet moments. The song "Born of Fire" has two solos in it, and the second/ outro solo is definitely the most memorable part of the entire album for me. While not also showcasing the guitarist's talent, there's something inherently rock 'n' roll about it which just gets me. From the long repeated bent notes to the dive bombs to the inharmonic noodling, I can only imaging the guitarist having a complete ball while playing it.

I'm not to crazy about the vocals on Culture of Death; they tend to follow traditional brutal death metal fashion. Crazy low growls that make Satan shit his pants and pig squeals so pig squealy I feel like I'm visiting a farm. There isn't much variation on the album as far as vocal range is concerned, and again, the vocals aren't anything that pop out at me.

The biggest problem I have with this album is the triggering on the drummer's kick pedals. I understand you need triggers to be able to hear the insanely fast drumming here, but I know that some bands have mixed both the triggered sound and a non-triggered sound together so that the bass drums sound nice and heavy while still maintaining the clarity. The kicks on Culture of Death don't sound too bad when they're played in the slower passages, but when the drummer really lets loose is when I find the clicky sounds of the triggers too distracting to properly enjoy the rest of the music.

Bomb-Ass Tracks: Dead Priest, Born of Fire

On a Playlist With: Dying Fetus, Cattle Decapitation, Aborted

Overall Score

2.5

Cystic Dysentery's Culture of Death is a brutal death metal album for brutal death metal fans. If you like the style, then I'm certain you'll love this album. If you aren't the hugest fan like I am, this album won't suddenly turn you into the worlds biggest Devourment fan. I have to give credit where credit is due, so I can say this is good shit, it's just that ultimately, it wasn't memorable enough of a listen for me.

Culture of Death can be picked up from Deathgasm Records and you can check out the rad bros of Cystic Dysentery on Facebook as well.

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

Album Review: The Faceless - "Autotheism"

After my analysis of why everybody has a boner for The Faceless, I promised myself I'd check out their new album Autotheism once it was released. Well, it came out today, and here I am. Let's get our tech-death on.

Anata called. They want their album cover back.

When I reviewed Planetary Duality, I said it "shoots to be something head and shoulders above the swathes of generic tech-death bands and gets close, but gets dragged back down by some sub-par vocals". My main problems with Planetary Duality were Derek Rydquist's higher register screams and the overuse of vocoders and vocal effects. Autotheism sees Rydquist replaced by Geoffrey Ficco who, in my opinion, is a much more well rounded vocalist (as well rounded as you can get with death metal vocals). This album also leaves the vocal effects behind (save for the awesome Stephen Hawking-esque voice in "Hail Science") and has guitarist Michael Keene taking up the mic much more often than before.

Keene's voice is even more powerful than before as well, with him being able to sing with more vigor and with a much larger range. His voice now seems to take on a Devin Townsend sort of tone, leaning more to Heavy Dev's calm side as opposed to his more aggressive one. I know that a lot of Faceless fans that suffered from bad cases of butthurt because Keene sings a lot on Autotheism, but they just need to get past it. Not everything needs to be a growl of scream. The man sings well and his voice is never tacky or out of place. You should applaud him for it.

This release also shows a little bit of experimentation from The Faceless. The first three songs, dubbed "Autotheist Movement" span 18 minutes of shifting music, from haunting piano and string sections to full on brutality to clean jazzy sections reminiscent of tech-death and jazz fusion legends Cynic. "Autotheist Movement III: Deconsecrate" shows the beautiful use of saxophone near the ending as well. [EDIT 20-Aug-2012: I recently discovered that the saxophonist on "Desconsecrate" is none other than Sergio "Sexy Sax Man" Flores. Fuck. Yes.] One thing I have to say I really like about the use of sax on Autotheism is that it's very smooth melodic playing, rather than the frantic and chaotic playing that has been cropping up on recent metal releases (Napalm Death and Ihsahn come to mind). I've got to say that the entirety of "Autotheist Movement" is probably one of the best written modern death metal songs I've heard in a long time.

One last thing I need to address on this album is the bass. Everyone knows I'm a sucker for good bass playing, and man, is the bass playing ever good on here. It's mixed perfectly with the other instruments so that you can hear it  very clearly without it overpowering any other instrument, and both the bass tone and phrasing really push forward a sort of jazz fusion and progressive rock vibe (a la modern Opeth and Cynic).

Bomb-Ass Tracks

Autotheist Movement I: Create: The beautiful and haunting intro track ebbs and flows through a sort of ethereal death metal sound. Michael Keene's vocals really shine here too.

Autotheist Movement III: Deconsecrate: There's everything you need here. Catchy riffs, face melting solos, brutal vocals, and that beautiful sax I was talking about earlier.

Ten Billion Years: [Insert remark about how catchy and well written the song is.]

On a Playlist With: (old) Cynic, Obscura, Decrepit Birth

Overall Score

4.0

This is the album Planetary Duality wanted to be. The Faceless have really created something that stands out in the technical death metal scene, which seems to get even more boring and saturated with mediocre bands by the day. Autotheism really makes me excited for where The Faceless are heading, and hopefully, where tech-death is going as a genre.

That's all for now, folks! Hail science.

Album Review: The Faceless - "Planetary Duality"

Since announcements about the new Faceless album have been cropping up recently, I decided to give these California based tech-deather's last album a listen to see why everyone is jizzing their pants in anticipation over this new release.

"Plantery Duality" brings things to a whole new level of brutal.

The Faceless are a relatively new up and coming band, with only three albums over six years (including their upcoming 2012 release, Autotheism). I haven't heard a peep about Alkedama, their first release, but I've heard a bunch of praise and general cocksuckery towards Planetary Duality. Driven by Michael Keene, the lead guitarist/ clean vocalist/ songwriter/ lyricist, The Faceless bring a surprisingly cool angle to the mechanical and formulaic genre of technical death metal.

Don't get me wrong, Planetary Duality isn't much more than technical death metal, but it's enough more for me to want to listen through it more than a once. The basis is standard. Mega fast, mega triggered double bass drums, tremolo picked riffs out the ass and more sweeping than a broom convention. The bits I've got to point out here are the little extras that make this album stand out (albeit not by too much). A lot of the lead guitar through the songs have long, held out, slowly bent notes (especially the title track) that really give an old-school-alien-invasion-movie-soundtrack feel. Considering The Faceless' sci-fi theme with the lyrics and artwork, the guitar work fits perfectly here.

Another thing that steps up Planetary Duality's game are the little clean interludes thrown in every once in a  while. Whether its with clean guitar like in the forty-four second track titled "Shape Shifters" or the intro of "Legion of the Serpent" or the fantastic little organ and piano bridges in "Xenochrist" and "Legion of the Serpent" as well, these breaks from the albums relentless brutality are very much welcomed.

The last thing that this release offers are some of Michael Keene's clean vocals sprinkled over it. They aren't fantastic, but they switch things up, and you can tell he's putting in a solid effort, so you can't really complain.

Too much guitar wanking makes Death Metal Skrillex Michael Keene sad.

As awesome as all that is, this album isn't without it's pitfalls. The first thing that really rustled my jimmies are lead vocalist Derek Rydquist's higher register screams. I fell they lack any and all guts behind them and sound forced as all Hell. I'm sure some people like them, but they're just not for me. Another vocal issue are the vocoders used, specifically on the opening track "Prison Born". Just. No. Please. No.

Bomb-Ass Tracks


The Ancient Covenant: You all know how much I love bass solos.
Xenochrist: With that awesome piano intro/ bridge, and some pretty interesting songwriting and riffing, its no wonder why "Xenochrist" is one of their most popular songs. Also, that outro is just too good not to listen to over and over again.
Legion of the Serpent: Michael Keene gets that bitch neo-classical riffing. Bitches love neo-classical riffing.


On a Playlist With: Obscura, Decrepit Birth, (old) Cynic


Overall Score
3.0


Planetary Duality is a guitar driven tech-death album that shoots to be something head and shoulders above  the swathes of generic tech-death bands and gets close, but gets dragged back down by some sub-par vocals. I know they don't show up often, but when they do, I cringe. 2012's Autotheist has a new vocalist taking up the mic, so I'm interested in what Michael Keene and friends will bring out next.


That's all for now, folks.

Album Review: Dying Fetus - "Reign Supreme"

This is the first re-post of all my Tumblr reviews. I've decided that this page will just be a big clusterfuck of things, from reviews to random shit. Woo!

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The new Dying Fetus album Fries Supreme is out. Just, fuck. Holy. Fuck.

 

Just so you know, comparing Dying Fetus to Taco Bell is totally reasonable. Taco Bell unleashes a gut-retching assault on your innards, causing you to (most likely) shit out your lungs. The same holds for Reign Supreme. Dying Fetus have crafted a bulletproof monster of an album that just rips you apart, anus first.

But before I go sucking Dying Fetus' collective dongs, I'll give a little intro on the band for those of you who don't know who they are. Dying Fetus is a Death Metal band/ Brutal Death Metal band/ Slam Death Metal band/ Technical Death Metal band (just Death Metal from here on in) from Maryland in the good ol' U.S. of A. Unlike most Death Metal bands of their ilk, Dying Fetus don't glorify violence in their lyrics. Instead they focus on political and modern social themes, but seriously who cares. You can't understand what the fuck Jon Gallagher (the bald one) is saying, ever.

The songwriting is fantastic here as well, with no part of the album letting up on the brutal onslaught. I never felt like any part was too drawn out or was getting boring through my listen. Whenever I wanted face-meltingly fast Death Metal, there was face-meltingly fast Death Metal, and whenever I wanted br00tal slamz, I got br00tal slamz.

The only downside to Reign Supreme is that even though it's a fucking monster of a Death Metal album, that's all it is.  As much as I fucking love me some Death Metal, my interests will most likely phase to some other genre of music (never), and when that happens, Dying Fetus won't really have anything to offer me (yeah, right). However, once I get back into a Death Metal phase (always), rest assured, Reign Supreme will be the first thing I go to.

Bomb-Ass Tracks

Subjected to a Beating: The second song off of Reign Supreme opens up with the Fetus' classic slamming mid-paced section, but once that massive drum fill/ solo kicks in, shit hits the fan.

From Womb to Waste: Opening with an unforgettable sample, this song just pounds your face in with some of the best riffs on the album.

Revisionist Past: All I have to say is dat intro solo.

On a Playlist With: Decrepit Birth, more Dying Fetus, Enpedestalment

Overall Score

4.5

Death Metal done fucking right, kids. Put on a pair of jeans that fit and take notes from the kings.