2024 Non Serviam Records (CD / LP)
www.non-serviam-records.com
From France comes this crew of death metal maniacs, and they deliver limitless talent, musicianship, and songwriting. Occasionally the heaviness that death metal should have gets lost in their musical forays since they emphasize technique so much, but that's ok. A band this good can get away with that. I was loosely familiar with their existence due to seeing the name on other websites and seeing their CDs in distros, but I didn't know what to expect musically, so I was highly pleased when I hit play and was greeted with their brand of the metal of death.
Ad Patres plays a style of death metal that immediately reminded me of late 1990s works by the greats of Florida like Malevolent Creation and Morbid Angel. I also hear influences from Vader and Dying Fetus, and they kind of remind me of Aeon and Defaced Creation a little as well. The riffs come fast and memorable, and quite often they make little musical forays into a place the listener does not expect, zigging when another band would zag. It makes for a fun listen overall, to see what this crew does with this particular style of death metal, including adding some seriously talented solos and harmonies without veering into overt melodicism.
The recording itself is perfect, and it does not suffer from being over-loud. It's quite easy to listen to and ear fatigue doesn't set in too fast like it does with some modern production jobs. It really lets the band shine, with all the panning back and forth and separate guitar harmonies on different headphone channels from time to time. One thing I must mention - the riffs are immediately memorable and heavy-hitting, and this is very important for a band that wants to play around musically as much as these guys do. Songs shouldn't get sacrificed on the altar of fuckin' talent, and I appreciate that these guys know that.
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