2024 Reality Fade Records (CD)
www.realityfade.com
Slamming brutal death metal is so hit or miss for me. When Devourment's first record came out, I was floored, but the clones that have come after, or near-clones, or just inspired-bys, are flooding the scene with substandard slam. That's not necessarily the case here, but I am going to take issue with a few things.
The album is heavy and brutal, with sick gutturals throughout, but also the fucking pig squeals. I hate pig squeals. Give me the toad croak or just super-low gutturals instead, please. Next, the relentless bass drops. Time to stop those, boys, everyone's doing it. Constant slam riffs are also no good. Where are the songs, guys? Even similar vocals patterns are used over similar riffs in different songs, time to get more creative on that front. I don't like the triggered kick drums, but I understand why it's done, especially in a live setting or while recording.
But what's the band doing right? Well, for one, they're not constantly doing pig squeal vocals. They do mix it up a bit, just not enough. The rough-at-the-edges production make the record stand out a bit. The bass sound is unique, and I like it. It's fuzzed-out, almost Mortician-like. The theme of the album seems focused on war, which is nice in this subgenre, which is almost always gore or just dumb stuff. War is a good topic.
Overall, this has all been done, and there's not enough variety to keep me interested - and I'm not that interested in variety (my favorite band is Nunslaughter, after all!). After 3 records, I am assuming there are no tweaks left to make for this band's sound, since they obviously found something they like to do, and I'm not going to tell them not to do it. They're perfectly capable at what they do. I just want more death metal in the slam, that's all.
No comments:
Post a Comment