Origin – Chaosmos (Agonia Records) [Zach Scott]
Origin is a technical death metal band that has been around for nearly 25 years, and has long been a mainstay in the annals of the genre’s history. And for good reason – they are renowned for their combination of blinding technicality with groove and aggression, becoming legends in the tech death scene and inspiring many modern bands such as Archspire. From the outset, this album shows it’s not here to mess around – machine gun blast beats and blindingly fast sweep arpeggios make way for infectiously groovy riffs in opening track Ecophagy. Paul Ryan’s guitar work is instantly recognisable, with his highly technical style complemented by the frenetic drumming of John Longstreth and Mike Flores’ grinding basslines. This same energy is maintained as the album continues, with the abrasive production style giving the record an old school feel, with very pronounced influence from the brutal tech death of Dying Fetus, which can be heard in the use of breakdowns and groove riffs like in the end of the title track, Chaosmos.
There is plenty of old school death metal here, with the track Decolonizer being a more upbeat callback to the early days of death metal, invoking the likes of Pestilence and Possessed, while still maintaining a modern technical feel. Unusually, there are some very long songs on this record, with Heat Death clocking in at over 7 and a half minutes (plus an interlude at the end), which is almost unheard of in death metal outside of the progressive side of it. The band manages to make it interesting, however, with the song length executed very well with a lot of different style riffs and feels although it does get slightly tiring towards the end of it. The band also flirts with other influences, such as the blackened textures found in Cullscape and the doomy influences in Nostalgia For Oblivion, but still stays strong with its roots in technical death metal, with the virtuosic shredding and melodic basslines in Panoptical reminding us that Origin are, at heart, all about speed. All across the record, shredding leads and chunky groove riffs are scattered, creating nice contrast between the various feels and showing the band’s songwriting maturity and versatility.
Technically, this album is brilliant – in particular, John Longstreth’s drumming is relentless and creative, and Paul Ryan’s guitar work is as good as ever. The album does begin to drone a bit, especially with the endless blast beats and tremolo riffing, but there is enough with regards to interesting influences to keep it fresh and keep it from that all-too-common trap that many tech death bands fall into, that being the trap of being so focused on speed and technicality that they lose interest and quality. This album does suffer slightly from that, but much less so than many more modern bands – this goes to show how mature they have become as songwriters. 8/10
There is plenty of old school death metal here, with the track Decolonizer being a more upbeat callback to the early days of death metal, invoking the likes of Pestilence and Possessed, while still maintaining a modern technical feel. Unusually, there are some very long songs on this record, with Heat Death clocking in at over 7 and a half minutes (plus an interlude at the end), which is almost unheard of in death metal outside of the progressive side of it. The band manages to make it interesting, however, with the song length executed very well with a lot of different style riffs and feels although it does get slightly tiring towards the end of it. The band also flirts with other influences, such as the blackened textures found in Cullscape and the doomy influences in Nostalgia For Oblivion, but still stays strong with its roots in technical death metal, with the virtuosic shredding and melodic basslines in Panoptical reminding us that Origin are, at heart, all about speed. All across the record, shredding leads and chunky groove riffs are scattered, creating nice contrast between the various feels and showing the band’s songwriting maturity and versatility.
Technically, this album is brilliant – in particular, John Longstreth’s drumming is relentless and creative, and Paul Ryan’s guitar work is as good as ever. The album does begin to drone a bit, especially with the endless blast beats and tremolo riffing, but there is enough with regards to interesting influences to keep it fresh and keep it from that all-too-common trap that many tech death bands fall into, that being the trap of being so focused on speed and technicality that they lose interest and quality. This album does suffer slightly from that, but much less so than many more modern bands – this goes to show how mature they have become as songwriters. 8/10
Vanitas - Vanitas EP (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
More modern metal riffage that comes from djent/prog metal, but this time merged with the epic orchestrations of symphonic metal. Birmingham band Vanitas characterize themselves as 'Cinematic Djent' a description that may make many shudder, for me this self titled record had a fantastic fusion of sounds. When you listen to this EP, the 7 minute opening song Ghostly Coast especially, you'd be surprised to hear that the band is only really a year old, however it features members of Verb The Noun and Aramantus, so there's a lot of experience that shines through on this four songs.
The quality of the musicianship is sublime, the riffs coming thick and fast, packed with groove drawn from djent roots , as the theatrical synths and strings make for a distinct counterpoint, Carry On especially is where Periphery meets Disney, it's written almost as a ballad but with progressive drumming sitting underneath those chunky riffs. So much of this sounds like music that usually features on a video game, but in a good way as the twin parts of their style carried well by the passionate vocals, that never shift too far into the operatic or the extreme.
The talent of their singer on the dramatic Break Illusions is certainly obvious to anyone listening, as the anthemic chorus shifts into shouted, sweary, breakdowns. The title track boasts excellent basslines, with the guitar playing being phenomenal throughout, though Ghostly Coast features the most complex on the EP. An incredibly impressive debut that will certainly see them sharing stages with bands such as Dakesis (in whose studio they recorded this EP) in future. 8/10
DeathFuckingCunt – Decadent Perversity (Transcending Obscurity Records) [Zach Scott]
With a name like that, there seems to be little need to describe the nature of DeathFuckingCunt’s music. They are a savagely heavy and fast death metal four-piece from Australia, blending the heaviness of brutal death metal with the unrelenting speed and aggression of modern technical death metal. Right off the bat, the album starts with Mulesing The Malformed, a rager of a track with some strong rumbling basslines by Brad Trevaskis. The pummelling rhythms rarely take a break, and this track sets the tone for the album very well, in terms of its shameless ferocity and brutality.
As we get deeper into the album, this aggression doesn’t falter. Thanks to the machine-gun drumming of ex-Wardaemon member Dan Grainger, there is a constant level of energy throughout this album. There is some homage to classic death metal with the vocal panning throughout, especially in second track Fisted Into Form– this track also contains some more old school riffing mixed with a bit of more modern melodic sections that contrast nicely with the more Archspire-style blast riffing. This more modern guitar work can also be found in the Rings Of Saturn-esque intro to the title track, Decadent Perversity, which gives way to a very death-doom inspired section.
One thing that sets this album apart from many tech death releases is that the guitar work still puts the riffs at the forefront, whereas many bands choose to have drum or vocal-led songs. Ollie Morgan delivers some absolutely killer riffs, especially in the third song Conceived In Formaldehyde, which has some very groovy parts and breakdowns combined with the established blast riff feel. One riff in particular, the one coming in at 2:18 in the third track, is an instantly memorable headbanger of a riff; very well executed in the song as well. This record does suffer from a lack of features that really distinguish the songs from each other. While the band’s style of mixing ruthless technicality with simpler old school brutality is very notable, the songs themselves find it more difficult to stand out amongst each other.
This is fairly typical of modern technical bands, and unfortunately DeathFuckingCunt is no exception, despite how exceptional that name may be. It is worth saying that the sections that do stand out, such as the groovy riffs in Conceived In Formaldehyd, the bass intro to Blunt Force Vasectomy, or the breakdowns in Emphatic Defloration, really do stand out effectively – there are just too many sections that sound nearly identical between songs due to that constant level of aggression that is integral to their sound. It’s not easy to strike a balance between having a recognisable sound and having songs that stand out from each other, and unfortunately this album doesn’t quite achieve it. However, all four musicians are clearly of an extremely high pedigree, and they have already demonstrated their knack for songwriting, so they will certainly improve on this as time goes on.
All things considered, this album is heavy and relentless, with some proper groovy headbanging moments and some absolutely apeshit sections and everything in between; fans of tech death and brutal death metal will definitely enjoy this, as well as fans of deathcore and even more old school death metal fans will find much to like here. Despite its problems, it is still a very well written and produced record, and will definitely be in heavy rotation in future. 8/10
Iron Tomb - Vile Retribution (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
The Midlands is the home of metal, there's no doubt about that, Birmingham specifically is probably the birth place of heavy metal and that's where OSDM band Iron Tomb hail from. Vile Retribution is their debut EP, featuring 4 tracks of death metal, that is as heavy as a full on artillery assault. Taking cues from Coventry's Bolt Thrower, Birmingham's Benediction and even some of the grinding riffs of Liverpool's Carcass. Along with these Brit influences Iron Tomb also get inspiration from the Florida scene too. There's a lot of cross over moments on these four tracks with grindcore violence and creeping doom too. With fantasy themes in their lyrics, Iron Tomb bring the flights of fancy that are usually in power metal, to a crushing, violent realisation.
Pagan Rule gets things off to a muscular start, breaking down into a steady slow doom riff before Wretched Dead speeds things up again by upping the thrash quotient, built around punishing drumming and those guttural vocals, the pace kept at full force for the crossover feeling of Death Immortal. Rounding out this EP is the title track which again has that British, grooving style of death metal, to leave you wanting more. Iron Tomb announce their presence with Vile Retribution, it's fair to say their next release will be hotly anticipated! 8/10