Carnifex - Necromanteum (2023)

I dropped off the Carnifex train roughly a decade ago. Not that I was ever a paying passenger, but I had followed the Californians along to experience their evolution as one of the cornerstones of US deathcore. Much to my chagrin, since I despised most of the material they put out in their earlier years, an example of vapid, mosh-over-metal which I simply don't ever jive with. But once they arrived at 2011's Until I Feel Nothing, I felt there were some seismic shifts in the songwriting, an advance in musicality, and that the band might develop into a more memorable entity through trial and perseverance. I didn't care much for the follow-up Die Without Hope, and did listen once through Slow Death, mostly attracted to the creepy cover artwork. I remember that one had dabbled in this symphonic-tinted style, but not much else about it, so I went into torpor over the rest of their catalogue...until now. Call me a sucker for a cool cover, but the sepulchral massive gates, gravestones, and green mist of Necromanteum called out to me. It looks a WHOLE lot like it should be on a Black Dahlia Murder album, but I figured I'd check it out and see if this band had actually managed to incorporate even more creepy atmosphere or horror theatrics until their chug-first, ask-questions-later style.

And I'd say they have done just that, with the implementation of some orchestration that gave me vibes of other bands like Winds of Plague, or the lesser known, excellent Lorelei, or perhaps if we're going a bit more brutal, Italy's Fleshgod Apocalypse. I'll go even one further, and say that Carnifex doesn't merely add these elements, but they do so tastefully. Spectral strings or eerie sounds will break out over some bludgeoning blast beat rhythm, or a swell of a more complete symphony might lurk around a double-bass break. It's almost as if Carnifex have implemented these much like some older bands used industrial sounds, purely as a complementary aesthetic and not to drown out or distract what their core audience comes to them for. There are a few points where an added instrument can sound a little out of place or obnoxious, but I think of it from a horror perspective, it still works well within the concept, and there are some great breaks like the end of the title track where the little choir loop rings out and it's pretty awesome. I can't qualify that this is new ground for them, but it's all a huge plus.

What's even more important, is that the central music of the band itself has dramatically improved. It's still deathcore, but there are lot more melodic death metal ingredients which recall the direction of At the Gates at they gained in popularity, and then further extracted by the Black Dahlia Murder who I just mentioned. Hell, there are moments in tracks like "Crowned in Everblack" where you can almost discern a Swedish melodic black metal influence, often pretty derivative in structure, and predictable in pattern, but when fired up as just another weapon in an arsenal that includes blasting, hammering, grooving, and atmospherics, it adds a lot to what is already a loaded sound. The instruments here are technical marvels, from the dizzying drums of Shawn Cameron to the rhythms and leads of Cory Arford and Neal Tiemann. Anything you'd want out of your modern, polished extreme metal (think current Cattle Decapitation), these guys can mete out effortlessly, if not innovatively.

The vocals are still a slight sore spot with me, not because they are bad, but they're just the typical range of gutturals and snarls you'd expect from others in this niche, including those I've mentioned, but it's not that they are bad...they are professionally executed to a fault, it's simply that they never establish any unique identify for the band. However, I could say this about a lot of death metal or deathcore acts, and they function well enough. I noticed that a few of the tunes here seemed to be playing around with a little more of a progressive structure between the walls of chugging, for example "The Pathless Forest", and I think this is a good direction for Carnifex to explore, as they already have a lot of the moshing crowd pleasers to fall back on in their back catalogue. This album was a really nice surprise, and I was happy to actually buy a copy (for the first time), to eat some serious crow, and put it on the shelf next to my Lorna Shore, Fit for an Autopsy, and whatever scant few albums like this I actually have in the collection. In fact I'll probably backtrack and check out the few before this to hear what I might have been missing. 

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.carnifexmetal.com/

Deathcore - Spontaneous Underground (1990)

Long before becoming the classification for guyliner-drenched moshing metrosexual angst, Deathcore was a relatively unknown German band performing a splattering of punk and grindcore which felt almost as spontaneous as they hinted at with the title of their Nuclear Blast debut. Looking and often sounding like a lost Sore Throat or Lawnmower Deth recording that never made it out through Earache the same year, Spontaneous Underground does nonetheless manifest a small sense of personality in juts how ugly and un-fucking-caring it sounds, the epitome of a bunch of dudes in jeans, high top sneakers and whatever hand-me-down metal attire they could scrounge up writing a bunch of violent, energetic music that cares little about subtlety or intelligence.

Deathcore actually draws on a number of influences, from the grinding Earache outlets up north of them in Britain, to the crossover thrash endemic to the US West Coat circa D.R.I., Cryptic Slaughter, and The Accused; you might even hear a little S.O.D. in a particular breakdown or two where the band pulls on its splattery reins for a couple bars. Loads of rehashed punk riffs sped up to a junkie pace, and then splayed out with other sections into longer-than-expected tracks. Spontaneous Underground is a long, long damn album for its style, clocking in at over 52 minutes, with tracks ranging from five seconds to over seven minutes in length, a few clicks of a beat and some chords to 'epics' that are constantly shifting around all over the entire riffing and tempo palette of the band. To be honest, that's not saying a lot, because I swear there are a hell of a lot of riffs on this album and almost all of them are the most insipid, forgettable sort that don't seem as if they took more than actually applying your palm and fingers to your guitar to create.

Looking for any sort of interesting progression of chords? Seek elsewhere, the only time you might be surprised at all here is when the guitarist throws out a noisy little spontaneous noodle or weird indie rock riff ("Dolphin Instinct") which feels more like a mistake than anything else. The vocals and lo-fi nature of the recording definitely save it some punk cred, since they have that timeless, earnest, amateur quality about them which we venerate on a lot of early punk and hardcore recordings. But man, when you consider just how much material this band is tossing your way, it's a damn shame that so little of it actually sticks. The loose fills and cadence of the drums, the splatter-style vocals set at various levels of shouts, screams and saturation, and the unfortunately-rebranded band moniker are all things that widely outlived the actual guitars and songs, and that's sadly just not what I seek out in a record like this. That said, it's mildly interesting in its obscurity for being on a label that would go on to explode as much as this one; and not terrible if you dig the DIY mentality usually associated with its style.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

Whitechapel - Mark of the Blade (2016)

Mark of the Blade is at once a celebration of many of the bases touched upon by previous Whitechapel albums, and sort of a mixed bag that signifies they're not quite sure where they want to go or who they want to be right now. That's not to say it's a bad record, necessarily, because even as someone who has rarely enjoyed any of their output, I thought that this hit enough of a quote of entertaining moments to dub it one of their better efforts. But the bulk of the material here definitely seems like it's simultaneously exploratory and constantly looking backwards, trying to flesh out ideas they might not have taken to their natural conclusions in the past, yet not willing to go far enough to make them stick.

Production is total brickhouse, with a mixture of thrashy melodeath rhythm guitars that feed into fat-bottomed grooves which themselves teeter between the djent and deathcore niches, without much resolution as to which side of that fence they're going to land on. The bass guitar has this enormous, bouncy tone which you can really feel in your stomach when they bust into the meathead hardcore breakdowns, almost like some heavily tatted GQ dudes are lining up to use your gut as a trampoline for their fists. But they also go for some brief, intimate moments like the intro to "Bring Me Home" where they're attempting to show off their sensitive side, clean guitar sounds and soothing vocals and a progression which almost reminded me of Tool or A Perfect Circle before the requisite clobbering rhythms begin. Tremolo picked melodies are often added as layers beneath the dense, roiling strata of mosh-oriented violence to add a little bit of a post-modern feel to the brocore step that they're often pretty loyal to, and the hoarse and antagonistic vocals of Phil Bozeman definitely sound as angry as I've heard in the past, especially in the lyrics to songs like "Tormented" or "Elitist Ones" where they definitely have a Hatebreed-like social hardcore aesthetic with even a little hip-hop or Biohazard to the syllable choices.

Hell, along with the pork-toned bass in the latter, it's quite funny to the point that I broke out laughing...but you wouldn't wanna get run down by these dudes in an alley regardless. Neither would I. The joke would be over then, as they beat me within an inch of never reviewing a deathcore band again. But yeah, there are lots of little deviations here or there where the aggression will cut out and they'll launch into something which feels progressive by comparison, and that actually creates an air of nuance to what they've recorded here. I can't accuse Whitechapel of not trying to write actual songs, or not trying to better themselves, because I feel like they're doing both. It's whether or not the riffs or the lyrics resonate with me here that matters, and to my chagrin, they really did not. Not for a lack of effort, though, and to their credit, they've done a far better job with this than their shoddy last album, Our Endless War, while still flirting with the more accessible goals of that album and then mixing 'em up with the 'classic' 2007-2010 era and a bit of the finesse of the self-titled disc (which remains my favorite). Hell, my 3-year old was going mental to this shit, jumping up and down on our futon and did a somersault or two into other nearby furniture. So...that there is something. Not a lot. But enough.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

http://www.whitechapelband.com/

Fallujah - The Flesh Prevails (2014)

Serving as both an evolutionary leap forward for the San Franciscans, and a modern day analogue for Cynic's classic Focus, The Flesh Prevails is one of those records I sat down with expecting only a tepid reaction, but came away feeling this was the best solitary experience I've had in the technical death metal field thus far in 2014. That's not to imply that it is by any measure some straightforward, brutal exhibition of musical proficiency like a lot of Fallujah's West Coast peers, but a unique record which blends a lot of sublime New Age and jazz fusion styled guitar effects with the melodious precision and surgical incision of the aforementioned Cynic or Swedes Theory in Practice, taking it to an entirely different level. I'm also reminded a little of Lykathea Aflame's Elvenefris, not that the two discs sound much alike, but they both have that penchant for a combination of simplistic melodic, synthesized components with hostility...though where that Czech anomaly is founded more on a grind ethic, this has a more acrobatic guitar wizard feel to it, which when bound to the 80s-like ambient tones and tasteful use of ethereal female vocals, seems as ridiculous as it does refreshing.

First I must mention the drums here, which are astounding, not solely for Andrew Baird's obvious blasting ability and effortless technique, but for his willingness to flush out those fills and implement some tasty higher pitch percussion to balance off the business of the slick snare/kick patterns. It's one of those rare recordings of which I could honestly just shut off the rest of the tracks and enjoy the amount of effort and finesse put into the beats alone. But that's not to take away the rest of it, the swerving and colliding bass guitar mechanics which give it a lot of that Cynic feel, or the pinpoint rhythm guitars which shift between clinical death/thrashing patterns, hyper melodic death and the more pummeling intensity we equate with a lot of their Unique Leader peers. Certainly there is an undercurrent of post-Human Death here, much like a band such as Decrepit Birth exudes, but with that obvious added level of brutality which you would never have heard out of Chuck Schuldiner's 90s transformation. The leads are honestly one of the weaker elements to the recording, but that's saying a lot, since they're all well-constructed, technical spectacles of shred inspired by both the fusion gods of the three prior decades and the fret-lords like Steve Vai, Satriani etc who ran concurrent as a mainstream alternative to that musicians-only scene.

Where this disc really stood out for me is how it will just mete out this minimalistic sequence of melodic notes, much like Fredrik Thordendal of Meshuggah/Special Defects fame would do on records such as Destroy Erase Improve, and you get this unified disparity of throttling intensity and transcendent airiness. Intros to songs will often involve cleaner guitar passages that ramp up fluidly into the riffing barrages, and that great use of the female vocal, which in many situations would sound absolutely cheesy on an Enya level, but here just blends in with the magnitude and scope of what Fallujah are pursuing. Production is polished to a vorpal edge, but there's also a lot of depth due to the mix and multi-tracking which gives it a stereophonic, radiant, futuristic aesthetic...like you are actually listening to this panning at you from a cloud-top throne, rather than through a headphone jack. The Californians were well on their way to such a sound with this album's 2011 predecessor The Harvest Wombs, but that was not so much about this sort of progressive balance as just getting the heavy correct, and while I did enjoy that to a degree this just exceeds it on so many levels...Fallujah have written something here that I'm going to spin repeatedly through this and several subsequent years at the very least, a dynamic whirlwind of calm and storm.

If I found any component of the disc to be lacking, it might be the guttural vocal performance of Alex Hoffman, which in any other band of its scene would seem perfectly adequate, but against the wealth of ideas presented through the instrumentation does come up somewhat bland. However, through the use of reverb, panning, and occasionally layering in of a Deicide-style snarl/growl combo, even he manages to embrace the shifting currents so crucial to upgrade The Flesh Prevails from a compelling technical exhibition to something with more emotional impact. The lyrics are personal and poetic, decent with the exception of the ambient/electropop lead-in piece "Alone With You", to which the words are obvious and groan inducing, but musically I didn't have much of an issue with the tune...it will appeal to people who enjoyed Yoko Kanno and Origa's collaborations on the Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex anime, for instance, which I really enjoy. But I found that those are really the only two areas in which the chinks in the armor of this record are revealed.

Ultimately, the clean vocals (female and a few faint male lines) and synthy melodies will prove an instant turnoff to that same niche audience which is likely going to (i.e. already does) hate the band for its production style, deathcore roots, and emphasis on flashy musicianship anyway, but even to those folks I want to exclaim 'we already had 35 records these last two weeks which sound like Autopsy...sweet, wonderful...now how about spending 42 minutes with something else for a change?' Fallujah's full-length sophomore is not perfect, but it does instill some faith in me that a band can put the pedal to the metal of proficiency and production standards while still writing something inspired and important. No, The Flesh Prevails is not for everyone. Nothing is. But it IS an exception, an exemption from the trending now, challenging and curiously accessible in one, and I have already listened the shit out of this record, with no plans to stop anytime soon.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (you're weaker now, but you're alive)

https://www.facebook.com/fallujahofficial

Whitechapel - Our Endless War (2014)

Try as they might to cultivate a distinct personality with their 5th album Our Endless War, Knoxville deathcore champions Whitechapel seem to repeatedly slug themselves into unconsciousness with a stock set of hybrid deathcore/djent grooves that immediately shit all over the fact that this is otherwise a fairly rounded, patient set of tunes with some genuine notion of songwriting and atmosphere. In fact, this might just be one of the most 'accessible' of deathcore's major league outings to date, with the caveat that they largely avoid the shitty emo pop chorus parts that have crept their way into the niche via its metalcore foster home. I can say that I feel like Whitechapel actually sat back after their last album, their most technical and progressive to its day (and coincidentally the first I liked...if barely) and then came up with the idea to redefine/simplify themselves akin to what Mastodon did with The Hunter, or Metallic did with The Black Album. What I can't say is that I enjoy it, because I do not.

The bedrock beneath this record is the djent-ish methodology of the guitar tuning and performance, which cycles through a number of tough guy grooves that wouldn't have been out of place on an Emmure record, but that occasionally strike out into a more purely deathcore variety of slamming, or even a spin on some of the neo-thrash we were starting to hear in the later 90s, which took its influence fully from Slayer's garbage phase or Pantera rather than the more inspirational material of the 80s. There are plenty of blast beats and uptempo passages, but these are often affixed with some of the most banal palm mute chugging of their career. The atmospheric melodies, cleaner guitars (as in the intro "Rise") or other techniques they mix into the formula might seem a tasty distraction for a few seconds, but inevitably they are drawn through gravity back to the most boring and contrived of riffing sequences possible, almost all of which are irritably familiar and lifted to some slight modification from various hardcore, metalcore and groove metal sources. There are still a few proggy inclinations to how some of the drums pan out (the best part of the album, in my opinion), like how they'll splash some bluesier harmonies over those Meshuggah/Special Defects jazz melodies of yesteryear to create some depth, but this is unfortunately not so compelling as it might have been.

The guitars have a reliable, stomach punching tone to them which is anchored by the fat but often difficult to notice bass guitar; however, this drummer goes so unerringly ballistic through so much of the 40 minutes here that he seems to leave the remainder of the players in his wakes. Fills flying everywhere, a good rich mix to the toms and kicks, Ben Harclerode is so consummately talented and professional that at the very least, this record could serve as his try-out reel for a far more important band one day. Not that the other players here lag so far behind that they don't deserve some notice, but the creativity of the chugging is unanimously vacant, and Phil Bozeman's vocals are just so vapidly Anselmo-Jasta-HWAAAAHHH that I barely felt the sustained growls trailing off them. Way too 'tough guy', only like so many of these expendable metalcore/deathcore front men, there is no charisma. I'm sure the guy has his demons, they/we all do, but I couldn't pick them out of a lineup of post-Earth Crisis mosh pilots over the course of the last 20 years, and of course I was just so bored by the music that Diamanda Galas singing over it couldn't have made a difference.

But by far the WORST part of this album would be the lyrics, which are more or less an endless fucking tirade of tired cliches that most angst-ridden tweens pen for their garage bands. 'Just let it go...', 'Fall to your knees', 'Our bodies full of scars', 'This is our way of life'...it's like the songs are all meant to be a part of this Hardcore Self-Affirmation 101 Playbook that aims to justify the band's existence, like it's really them against the world or something, kicking ass on tour and bein' rock stars! No guys, you're not rebels, you play trendy heavy -core music with nary a shred of individuality. Low-hanging fruits plucked from the altar of mediocrity. I'm sure it's all really heart felt (like angina), but what could be more lazy and boring? This album felt so earnestly and desperately bland to me that I almost wonder what I heard in its predecessor, which must have just been a fluke. Our Endless War even looks the part of forgettable, and I think ultimately I liked this one even less than the new Carnifex, which was another step backwards for a potentially promising band. There are exponentially worse albums in this style/these styles, but I sure feel no compulsion to visit this one further.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/whitechapelmetal

Carnifex - Die Without Hope (2014)

Often, when I think of the deathcore scene as a whole, I imagine a group of guys walking around in the dark with their dicks in their hands. 'Will you suck it?' 'No, suck MINE.' The music is just that much of a primal biological impulse programmed into its creators, who often seem unable to separate themselves from the many years of chugging metalcore and djent mandates that predate them. The artistic merits of a Terrance and Philip skit. Bad music is the new good music! Does that make all the records in the style reproachable? Absolutely not...if they can put the notes together correctly, and summon up just enough variation and musicality, they have and will write some truly entertaining shit, in particular the atmospheric or symphonic suburbs sprawling off to the left of Beatdown Avenue. Conversely, this will draw the resentment of a small minority who prefer the niche at its most '13-year-old caveman-cumming-of-age' with copy/pasted slam sequences and whiny lyrics of heartbroken angst informed by whatever Pantera, Killswitch Engage, Slipknot, Converge or Slayer records they happen to own. Angels falling, wings ripped. Hands bleeding. Men clutching themselves in corners, unable to rise above their emotional agony. Girls are, like, NAZIS! I'm totally gonna fuck up this gym locker!

At any rate, Californians Carnifex were really starting to metamorphose from such a cocoon. It's been a long time coming, and goddamn did this group suck to begin with, but steadily they have ascended into something resembling a band which releases albums that I don't instantly want to remove from my CD player, peaking with 2011's Until I Feel Nothing, an album that many diehard followers of their old stuff disliked, which would seem to yield a default recommendation. So naturally, that disc's successor was the first that I actually found myself anticipating...okay, not really, but Die Without Hope might damn well have proven the first Carnifex album I could define as 'good' with a straight face. Once I saw the cover art, I was even more curious...could they have integrated a little old school death metal into their sound? Sadly, this is actually a step backward from where they are headed, without exactly abandoning the direction of the last 2-3 full-lengths. It's testosterone-charged slammy deathcore with loads of soulless chugging, and the caveat that these guys at least put some effort into their leads, and intto generating a modicum of complexity with the use of more atmospheric or tremolo-picked guitars as an enforcement upon the standardized tropes that plague the album, the sub-genre, and inevitably result in my lack of interest after a number of spins through it. Die Without Hope is certainly no backpedaling to the mid-oughts, and I think these guys clearly continue to imbue the material with their melodeath and modern thrash inspirations, but it's all so painfully average.

What continues to really kill their sound the most is how generic the vocalist is, you could literally transplant a frontman from anywhere else in the medium, and apart from comparing and counting neck and sleeve tats, there would be no difference. Vapid Americore growling and snarling which traces its history all the way back to those earlier Deicide/Carcass as translated through countless grindcore, metalcore and melodic death metal acts hailing from England, Sweden, and Uncle Sam. There is no individuality, no legitimate sense of torment or torture...I really do not feel like I get to know this guy whatsoever, his trials and tribulations, and it really puts a dampener on things. It's not tough sounding, and it's not remotely sinister. BE SINISTER. Come to Satan, my darlings! But, no: overbearing, predictable and boring would be more accurate. There is no technical deficiency...he can bark on tempo and there is real wind coming out of his lungs, but you've just heard it so, so, so many times and its naught more than a superficial brutality in execution. Beyond that, Carnifex are entirely competent, with storming percussion that can easily handle all the standards: double-bass chokepoints, seamless blast beats and simpler, sparser beats to support the swarthy palm-muted grooves. The bass guitar really gets lost for me...I mean, I can hear it but I'd rather the guy perform some more unusual lines that stand out from the chugging rather than support it so closely. A little more depth, richness and complexity to these mosh parts would not be a hindrance.

But I can be thankful that, almost unanimously, the breakdowns are affixed with tinny little melodies or other busy distractions that feel much more fulfilling than had they not been present. They are clearly not afraid to contrast those harsher, caustic bludgeon-fests with some eloquence or grace, and while the melodic bits are vastly outnumbered, the leads are fairly professional and the overall experience of Die Without Hope really relishes in that modernist, 21st century extreme metal sensibility which I'm not at all shy around...I just want the songs to be good. These are largely interchangeable, you could throw half the grooves into the other songs and not notice any difference, so perhaps it suffers from a little too much consistency. Not always a detriment, but here it made the record tiring long before the 38 minutes ground to a halt. The mix of the album is a sure bet for followers of the style...titanic, punchy, and yet not negligent of all the minor details. In other words, the vest metal legions will fucking hate it, but if you're down for what you generally hear from bands like Job for a Cowboy, Whitechapel and this one, then it's to be expected. I mean, as old as I am, and as much as I love old metal, I'm not the typical 'get off my lawn' type. I am down with what the kids are trying; I simply have faith that many of them can do it better. Personally, I just got bored by the modular nature of this music. Carnifex has proficiency locked down, and they deliver some variation and texture to the degree that they seem to think about what they're doing before they record it, but I really wish the songs would just stick more...and please, reach within yourself, and try using a different vocal style for once, even if it's just a fraction removed from what is on this album. With some feeling.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/CarnifexMetal?ref=ts

All Shall Perish - This Is Where It Ends (2011)

Disclosure: I still dislike the All That Perish logo, but this fatter version of it is aesthetically more pleasing than its predecessors, which seemed like they were about to dissolve right off the album covers. So, yeah, the font choice is still pretty dated, a 90s, tattooed tough guy relic (which might be more acceptable if these guys were an NYHC band), but for once it doesn't look like an ugly scratch distracting from the artwork. Also, if you'll pay attention to the title coloring, the fiery 'Ends' seems like it just might be hinting at This is Where it Ends as a swan song for the band; not that they made such a claim, and we now know it not to be true, unless they decide to call it quits now that Hermida has moved on to Suicide Silence, but I can't help but feel a little gypped. This is Where it ENDs. Sad times? Good riddance? Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out? That will really all depend on the music...

And yeah, this is probably the best All Shall Perish record, by baby steps if not a country mile. Or at least, the one I'd point out if someone asked me where to begin with their catalog. Not that I'd recommend this band over others in their niche, but at least they've maintained an upward momentum throughout the four records that hints at further greatness. For the most part, This Is Where It Ends plays out like a hybrid of faster-paced brutal death metal and At the Gates-styled melodic stuff, with the band integrating more dissonance and interesting embellishments to their chug-off breaks, and a better hand at integrating a more fulfilling, psychotic atmosphere into the tunes occasionally via whispers, spoken word, etc. Granted, there are times when this plays out like a pretty straight AtG-melodeath extravaganza with little of its own personality, such as the opening to "There Is Nothing Left", or the verse of "The Past Will Haunt Us Both", which are a lot like The Black Dahlia Murder's pugilistic spin on Slaughter of the Soul, but elsewhere you've got really bouncy, djent-like brutality, or Necrophagist-style lead technicality and it ultimately creates a fair balance over the 12 tracks.

I pretty much lost any interest in Hernan Hermida here, because he really just sounds like another standard Tomas Lindberg with some deeper growls that he can shift back and forth into. There is obvious anger like you'll find on any deathcore outing, but his retching doesn't seem remotely distinctive, nor as vicious as his peers like Trevor Strnad or the late Mitch Lucker, who he is now replacing (good luck with that). The songwriting here is also so busy that I often lose Mike Tiner's bass lines in the mix, apart from the few softer moments where he can stumble through. It's just that the tunes rely on such a hectic pile of precision riffs that my ears had a hard time following anything other than the guitars of Beniko Orum (who was on his last leg with the band) and newcomer Francesco Arturato, which take center stage. The new drummer Adam Pierce is also good, but like most modern brickwork players, his hard strikes and technical prowess just don't seem to distance him from any of a widening pool of peers who play at the same level. There's really just not a lot of personality anywhere on This Is Where It Ends...the record functions more as a technical behemoth where the riffs and tempo shifts take charge.

Fortunately, they really do take charge, and a few tunes like closer "In This Life of Pain", with its traumatic transition from piano to intensity. actually stand to memory awhile after the dust clears and you've moved on to something else. What I appreciated was that the constant strands of melody over the album keep the material fractionally more compelling than if they went with the bare, punchy rhythms...nothing bewilderingly complicated, but lots of distractions, and an overall incline in maturity. The drawback is that this is just not much of a creative boost over Awaken the Dreamers, and it would be difficult to pick this band out of a lineup of others who attempt to fuse those same hardcore/metalcore backgrounds into their Suffocation, Morbid Angel and At the Gates influences. The great attention to melodic and harmony detail here does ultimately negate any ability for the music to become frightening, tortured or genuine. This Is Where It Ends is ultimately a clinical, meticulous study in modern 'extreme' metal that lacks the timelessness of hooks that defines what might make a 'classic' record in this field. From a technical standpoint, it doesn't disappoint, but I want a little more tangible, memorable emotion, and sadly they've yet to produce something that I'd choose to quantify/rate as a 'good' album. This is another close call, but that's the best I can say, and there is not a major gulf in quality between this and the two albums preceding it.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (this place is set for ruination)

http://www.allshallperish.com/

All Shall Perish - Awaken the Dreamers (2008)

Awaken the Dreamers is an earnest attempt to smother the chugging fundamentals of its medium into something so heavily glazed with ideas that it would impossible for me to dislike it; even if I face the nagging realization that, stripped bare of its melodies or 'toppings', I'd be left with one boring pizza pie of slogging palm-muted grooves that add absolutely nothing of value to the deathcore spectrum. That goddamn awful logo unfortunately remains on the cover, almost like a reminder of the ghetto brickwork 90s mosh mentality All Shall Perish seems to consciously or unconsciously champion despite its more musical leanings, but otherwise I'd have to say I enjoyed the artwork more than their other efforts, with its (literally) six-gunning Statue of Liberty and the symmetric clouds of jet fighters that flank it. If only the middle of the picture was vomited upon by this generic relic of a logo, we'd be in business at last...

Musically, though, All Shall Perish and I are just about to seal the deal, our right hands skin on skin without yet giving a firm shake. The effort put into this record is laudable, despite its faults, which almost all center on the continued overuse of warlike Earth Crisis chugging rhythms that structurally go nowhere interesting. It wouldn't be difficult for musicians of this caliber to find a solution...for instance, kicking the bland chords or adding some dissonance second and third notes to the palm mutes, you'd instantly get something deeper than the deathcore (and previously metalcore) breakdown status quo. Fortunately, the guitarists compensate with a bewildering amount of higher string exercises that range from modern Swedish melodeath sequences, or tapping patterns that often remind me of 8-bit video game classics if they were being arpeggiated by crack whore shredders, or just flashy scale-work that just seems to fit over the banal foundation well enough that you, as the listener, can consign the rhythm guitars to another piece of the percussion kit. Which I think was the Californians' intent, to continue pushing themselves without alienating the fistfighting anthems that spurred on its original audience.

There are slick, jazzy breaks, and segues where All Shall Perish seem to flirt with metal inspirations of a more progressive nature, but to be honest these often feel like they're just abrupt transitions in which they're attempting to throw a surprise left hook at you when they really need a more impactful uppercut. Don't get me wrong: it's a joy that they see fit to expand themselves without losing that violent core, but occasionally these metalcore/deathcore groups seem as if they've just put together their tracks piecemeal, and even on this solid album you could probably switch off a lot of the riffs and breaks between different songs and come up with a similar result. It's more modular than built of strong individual songs, and so there aren't a lot that I found enjoying in full...I simply could pick out a lot of smaller passages within them that were pretty cool, and yes many of those were melodies or leads. The bass playing continues to count here, with loads of groovy fills in tunes like the title cut that keep the music multi-faceted without detracting from the busyness of the guitars. Matt Kukyendall's last studio performance with the band is likewise fit: flawless footwork, no shortage of fills and a clean capacity to match the jazzier tempo shifts that populate the experience.

As for Hermida's performance, it's pretty much on par with the sophomore album, only he brings in some cleaner emotional vocals that remain fortunately subdued rather than reaching for that radio accessibility so many of these bands shot themselves in the arse for. I was quite shocked to hear Cam Pipes of 3 Inches of Blood add some screaming harmonies to "Black Gold Reign". I am nowhere near a fan of that band, who I find to be corny, ironic and not the least bit funny...but even I have to admit that in this context, it creates a more compelling texture against the expected chugging of the rhythm guitar, and I almost wished that they would have used him more throughout. That said, Hermida himself continues to show some promise as he continues to evolve towards that status of 'distinct deathcore frontman' (which sadly it seems he will be cultivating further in another band). The lyrics are admittedly the bland, personal stuff you'd expect out of 90% of 90s hardcore, nu-metal and so forth, eliciting zero curiosity and painfully little standout imagery that you couldn't find on even the least interesting Converge record, but the delivery is at least genuine.

I really enjoyed the 'experimentation' like the lush ambient/acoustic guitar pieces "Misery's Introduction", "The Ones We Left Behind", or "Memories of a Glass Sanctuary" (with vocals!), which flow surprisingly well into their more brutal neighbors, but I don't think in the end I came away from Awaken the Dreamers with the impression that it was a truly memorable outing...just a damn polished one that plainly exhibits a mutual musical advancement among the membership and a willingness to embrace external ideas without shafting those that have stuck with them since the beginning. Aesthetically I prefer the more clinical/brutal death metal exhibition that Job for a Cowboy utilized on some of their full-lengths, as a poster child for positive growth in this field, but as much as anyone might want to write off All Shall Perish as another 'me too' band that was signed to a large label based on the emergent deathcore trend, records like The Price of Existence and Awaken the Dreams proved that these gentlemen were absolutely not duds. Relegated at large to the 'second string' of the niche, perhaps, but I'd attribute that more to them lacking the emo-hipster-youth attuned art direction and rock star attractiveness that several of their peers flaunted to reap the admiration of the girls and bois in the audience. Musically, these Californians are on point, and even better than some of the shitty, overhyped acts in their medium.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (a true man will take a stand)

http://www.allshallperish.com/

All Shall Perish - The Price of Existence (2006)

I've noticed an interesting trend in how I, a person with only a cursory or moderate interest in deathcore as a valid musical outlet, differ with the 'core' audience of the style in personal perceptions of what makes one of these records good or bad. A lot of dudes are looking for something as brutal and fistfight-worthy as possible, with little regards to the musicality involved, the ambitious or innovative grounds being staked out by the artist as to how they can distinguish themselves from a whole horde of other brutal death or metalcore outfits. They don't want anything to get in the way of that sheer physicality...I mean at the extreme end, I've known fellas who go to gigs to fight, not to give a shit about the music, although strangely enough some of these guys seem to simultaneously respect and air guitar to soulless technical noodling...basically two ends of the spectrum in complexity, colliding. Is this what metal has boiled down to today for the audience first reared on hardcore, metalcore and nu metal?

Whereas, I'm sort of the opposite...I want to hear how this urban/suburban blight might transform itself from the same breakdown shit I've heard repeated over and over since the former half of the 90s, into something more memorable and compelling in riffing choices. Truth be told, I'm all about the songwriting, which dates back to my own experiences delving into metal since a very young age in the late 70s...not that 'songwriting' precludes a heavily mosh/breakdown-based palm-mute panorama by any means, but how those sequences are often balanced against other to create something I want to listen to repeatedly (or not, but in that case they would have to be some truly infectious slugfests). I bring this up because, as they've progressed through the years, All Shall Perish seem to be of the same mindset, ramping up the melodic death metal influences in their songs as they've grown their audience and musical proficiency. The Price of Existence is almost instantly a more musical entity than its predecessor Hate.Malice.Revenge, thanks to the faster melodic picking and attention to spurious leads, but clearly the beatdown rhythms have not themselves 'perished', since they comprise much of the support to the flightier, fickle guitar work.

I'm not saying it's that much better than the debut, because for all the increased effort the majority of this music is far too quickly forgotten, but here at least as a record I can sit and listen through and actually perceive a handful of ideas that don't bore me straight from the starting gate. This is of course the record where they picked up Hernan Hermida on vocals, and while he's nothing extraordinary in this field he has a pretty seasoned palette of painful growls and sneers that at least surpass his predecessor in quality, as he seems to so effortlessly dive into the faster syllabic passages or belch forth a sustained Tomas Lindberg style snarl. And yeah, At the Gates is still a pretty good comparison, only add in the surplus of fisticuff chugging progressions and dour hardcore chord components circa Hatebreed/Earth Crisis, as well as a slightly more surgical approach to the guitars that involves rapid arpeggiated runs or clinical picking that recalls the operating table thrash that tech death borrowed from European gods of the 80s (sung and unsung) like Pestilence, Carcass and Deathrow. In fact, I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoyed much of the album, but it's got particular pieces that really appeal to my ears, and it simply clobbers that first effort.

Special mention to the bassist, Mike Tiner, who makes himself known here with some swerving and busy grooves and lines that lend a greater depth to the choppier, clinical guitar elements in tunes like "Prisoner of War". The leads, too, while not so scathingly memorable that you'll think of them outside the experience, have a more emotional and melodic range to them ("Better Living Through Catastrophe") which really reinforces that All Shall Perish was not interesting in sticking around Beatcore Browdownland for all eternity, but in achieving that very important balance. Which, honestly, they do here. The Price of Existence falls short of success for me only in the fact that as well-sharpened the band's utensils have become, this specific meal is just not the tastiest you're likely to find. For instance, some of the Job for a Cowboy albums where they went all brutal death are packed with more interesting, catchy riff patterns, and even bands like Carnifex and Whitechapel have been making dramatic improvements to their material, at least in my estimation (like I said, there's a pretty stubborn core audience to this niche which seems adverse to any sort of variation or logical progression).

Yeah, if you're into deathcore for both the breakdowns and musicianship, The Price of Existence is really not a bad place to start. The lyrics are mildly more coherent, and the cover art better, though their logo remained fucking awful. Fortunately, they didn't shitty this up with a bunch of clean radio choruses or any of that Killswitch Engage garbage (approved by soccer moms everywhere), and the fact that this was their first for Nuclear Blast sort of comes with the implication that the production is better. I had no problem with the studio sound for Hate.Malice.Revenge, but this is superior in terms of vocal levels and drums. The addition of the second lead guitarist (Chris Storey) was a wise one, and in fact both guitarists were new here...it was a 60% lineup change with only the rhythm section remaining off the debut. They made some good choices and transformed from the sort of band I could hear just about anywhere I could find a 'core or 'metal' gig, to a potential contender in a West Coast arena that also contained bands like As I Lay Dying and Suicide Silence. There's certainly a sense of 'me too' about this, another bandwagon outfit attempting to capitalize on the success of East Coast commercial metalcore (and The Black Dahlia Murder) by gutting some of its sissy ingredients and incorporating more death metal and gut churning mosh moments...yet that is the worst thing to be said for it (okay, outside of the logo).

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (before the days of gluttons)

http://www.allshallperish.com/

All Shall Perish - Hate.Malice.Revenge (2003)

Is there anything more frustrating than an extreme metal record which wastes so little time in dispensing its potential qualities to reveal its true nature: a reductionist, lazy bro-down mosh vehicle? All Shall Perish has long been presented to me (by acquaintances) as one of the most 'legit' acts in the deathcore field, an example of toughguycore backed by some real Oakland street cred, tight musicianship and something I might get into since I have both a soft spot for NYHC and a few of the more musical efforts in this particular niche (like Job for a Cowboy's recent output). So I decided to delve into their catalog, of which I only had a cursory knowledge from a few videos, and thus far I'm turning up blanks folks...this, lamentably, sort of sucks, and what makes it worse is that if I went at it with a paring knife I could probably carve out a 10-15 chunk of decency.

Unlike some of their later stuff I've heard, which seems to thrive more on that In Flames/Black Dahlia Murder axis with the more technical, perky melodic riffing, Hate.Malice.Revenge seems to dwell in a space between a more surgical, brutal death metal influence and the unnecessary neanderthal slog-core that soils it as an experience (at least for me). You've got some fairly apt tremolo picking selections here which range from Carcass to Deicide to Morbid Angel and these are broken up by some of the most banal palm muted chug sequences you've heard since bands like Earth Crisis capitalized on them in the earlier 90s. To the Californians' credit, they do incorporate a lot of slower, dreary melodies which might even belong to the Bolt Thrower camp if weren't based around such basic pit structures, but in general you range from the faster picked tremolo death to the breakdown and that's the majority of what I hear on this, without any real clue on how to incorporate the tempo shifts with any tact or style. The notes match, the shift in pacing is not unappreciated, I just found myself hoping for some nuance or cleverness in how they distributed the blunt punishment. It's kid stuff...with something more mature struggling to break free.

Vocals are incredibly generic here, but it's all too rare among the deathcore crowd that they are anything else? This was before they got the better known Hernan Hermida (who has since moved over to replace Mitch in Suicide Silence), who became synonymous with their sound, but here you've just got a selection of generic 'look, Mom, I can growl too' gutturals and higher pitched, retching snarls. Not awful, but overbearing in that typical American fashion where sounding brutal and oppressive trumps having any character or true distinction to one's performance. You could interchange this guy with almost any kid you pulled off the street and arrive at similar results, whereas death metal was once about having some uniqueness or charisma...can you imagine if a deathcore band boisted a frontman as compelling as a Martin van Drunen, John Tardy or Paul Speckmann? Yes, I know, that's a grand idea, so if you've got some in mind, do point them out, as the vocals always seem such a shortcoming for this subgenre. Gurgle like an indistinct toilet over the pathetic palm mutes: for the win! Fuck off!

Everything just seems so custom-made for moshing on this disc that it seems entirely inconsequential when you're outside of that setting, and that might work out for some records, but here it just doesn't equate to a pleasurable listening experience. Surprisingly, there are few production pitfalls. I like the way Hate.Malice. Revenge actually SOUNDS, just not the choices the band makes in sculpting that sound. Roiling, chuggy guitars that don't dowse themselves in unnecessary effects. Tribal like drumming that lurches along with every groove, and a nice and fat bass tone which at least adds to the mix, if not a lot of interesting notes and fills. The vocals are loud, which is a constant in deathcore and metalcore, but not to the point of distracting away from the chords. Elsewhere, the aesthetics of this debut are fucking pitiful. The 'three harsh words separated by period punctuation' album title has already been done by bands like Revenge and Watchmaker, who are actually good, so that never needed to be revisted. Also can't stand this band's logo...it just reads like any generic House of Pain-era tattoo from the 90s, and I don't even find that acceptable or interesting even when a straight up hardcore band does it...groups like Hatebreed started a nasty trend, methinks.

I'm going to assume All Shall Perish was a pretty young group when this dropped a decade ago, but the lyrics are mediocre in the way most 'heartfelt' hardcore/metalcore emotional stuff was in the early 90s, reading like the scrawls and soul-searching of a 14 year old in his freshman notebook. To be fair, a few of them have that same apocalyptic vibes to them (common in deathcore), but others are about relationships and being betrayed and hurt and how awful that all is, whether in a domestic situation or a girl/boyfriend. Hey dudes, there's plenty of pussy in this world (or dick, if that's your fix), but if you're going to write about how you've been squashed, how about trying some metaphor? Some lasting imagery? Interesting syllabic patterns? If bros could write like that close to a thousand years ago, why can't you? I think bands like Converge or Trap Them really set the standard for all lyrical things 'core, so it's a fraction painful to read the more primitive sentiments...not that primitive is always bad, but if it's not going to be entertaining, it's not enough.

Hate.Malice.Revenge was a pretty unusual release for Amputated Vein since the label focuses almost exclusively on brutal death, but I can see how they might wanna take a chance on this since the style did not immediately create such friction among the diehard goremongers. However, I feel like they might have taken this chance with a better band. Granted, I'm in the minority, and these guys blew up pretty big with their Nuclear Blast deal (which produced a few superior albums that I'll cover later), but I get the impression from Hate.Malice.Revenge that these guys were just the local neighborhood flavor who just had their shit together enough to put on some raging pits at their gigs, and that seems to be the only musical momentum this material is capable of. Brief glimpses of something more engaging throughout, but ultimately a sodden and underwhelming experience beyond balling up your fist and juicin' the testosterone. Dude metal for dudes who wanna hit other dudes repeatedly, but those into music for the MUSIC would be better served with the later All Shall Perish outings.

Verdict: Fail [4/10] (your grasp won't follow me to the grave)

http://www.allshallperish.com/

Cryptopsy - The Unspoken King (2008)

It doesn't at all surprise me that The Unspoken King has received the tidal wave of negative reactions that it has; what DOES throw me for a loop is how a lot of these people act as if it's their first shitty album. Not the case, if we glimpse back to the turn of the century, and also not the case that the band hadn't been struggling to define a direction for itself for the decade prior to this album's release. So, this is the infamous 'deathcore' record, yet Cryptopsy had been incorporating ingredients of that aesthetic bastardization as far back as the later 90s. Not news, even if The Unspoken King streamlined the techniques in terms of structure and studio engineering to position itself better in the theater of warfare with up and comers like Job for a Cowboy or Whitechapel.

This, in of itself, this stylistic choice, does not bother me. The trending and timing is suspect, but a cursory listen through the previous material will reveal influences of metalcore, math metal, sludge, and just about any other 'hot topic' on the extreme music scene of the Western world. And let's be honest: a sizable portion of the band's audience consisted of hardcore and metalcore fans since the 90s, when they first got wind of a record like None So Vile or Whisper Supremacy (around the time of the Century Media signing) and got off on the raving guttural vocals and the technical lunacy of the performance. While purely anecdotal evidence, I, myself, living in one of the USA's most massive and trendsetting metalcore markets, heard a lot more about Cryptopsy from the 'core kids than the bedraggled death metal minority. So it makes a lot of sense that the band's audience would itself rub off on the band, as it always had, and create a feedback loop through the years. The problem is that prior works like Once Was Not took this into an experimental direction, where The Unspoken King is a brickwalled billboard for its cliches, a Bleeding Through with a higher level of technicality and musical endorsement, and less novice chord progressions and glaringly generic melodies.

The Unspoken King isn't a bad record because it forges a truce between Cryptopsy's spurious, furious history and deathcore's tattooed, stretch-lobed, emo-haired breakdowns. It's a bad record because the songwriting is uniformly soulless and uninteresting. To be certain, this is not an effort short on variation; I'd go so far to say that there's just as much diversity on this as Once Was Not, only playing by a separate set of rules. You've got your mechanical drumming-fueled brutal death metal undertone, climaxing into some of the most banal and boring chug breakdowns you've ever heard. Glints of post-hardcore and modern heavy radio rock are strewn through the more intense passages, and they definitely make every effort to showcase the 'sensitive side' of their new vocalist. If all of this were dowsed in superb riff-writing, atmosphere and really catchy vocal lines, then I'd be the first to forgive these cheap shots of accessibility, but unfortunately these ideas simply don't gel into anything worth remembering. In their attempt to escape the 'weirdness' of the previous, Lord Worm fronted album, they've gone too far to the other side, losing all distinction.

It doesn't help that two of the newer band members, whether by their own lack of talent or poor decisions on the part of the veterans, turn in such atrocious performances here. Vocalist Matt McGachy was pretty much a 'package deal' of mediocrity. He's not necessarily tuneless or incompetent at the contrasting styles and pitches he brings to the table, but each feels wholly mundane and uninteresting. Not as goofy as Mike DiSalvo on And Then You'll Beg, but no more charming either. He's got a pretty standard guttural bark, a deeper guttural for 'da sickness', a rasp that's more suited to the grind influenced grooves and rhythms, and the requisite clean parts for those 'radio hooks' redolent of NWOAHM bands like Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, and All That Remains. Safe for mommy, or your little sister. While none of his harsher inflections is particularly effective, the melodic vocals are almost unbearable in the context of Cryptopsy; ranging from a Puddle of Mudd/Linkin Park inflection to a silkier attempt at pulling off some Mike Patton worship, which simply sounds out of place on this record. Probably the worst offender here is the song "Bound Dead", which transforms into vapid power chord strumming that carries his voice into very obvious 'we wanna be liked by people who would otherwise hate us' territory; but this is not the sole transgressor.

Even worse, the 'keyboardist' Maggie Durand. I'm not averse to Cryptopsy using synthesizers, as they made for an interesting orchestral excursion on the prior album, and I have no problem with synthesizers in general if they're adding atmosphere to the music. But these are utter shit throughout the whole record! It's very difficult to think of her as anything more than 'window dressing', as in the aforementioned shit act Bleeding Through. There's nothing wrong with a little eye candy, but for whatever reason she either really sucks at playing the keys, or the band is painfully underusing her here. At best she'll be delivering well below the volume of the other instruments, some single note atmospheric pad or sampled texture. Or the band will throw in a bit of a techno electronic substrate into a brief passage, but all of it is incredibly useless. The music would have lost nothing without it. If keys were not going to be made a prominent feature of the band, then I see no reason to even add a band member, and thus the pretty glaring evidence of 'sex appeal'. They can be used subtly to great effect (Soilwork's Natural Born Chaos), but here they are nearly 100% arbitrary. For all I know, Durand is a virtuoso on the piano, but Cryptopsy doesn't want me to find out...

Otherwise, who cares? Flo Mounier drums with the personality of one of those programmable vacuum robots that are all the rage with lazy housewives and househusbands. Sleek, professional, polished to a flaw. Yeah, maybe he sounds more level than on other records where his fills and performance had a lot more charisma, but this is no more or less than any modern brutal/tech record you'll find out there. I'm sure the bass playing is also keeping busy here, but it too feels like it's on a valium drip. Langlois' farting, popping presence on past records is here just another forgettable undertow to the machine-like composition. At the very best, Alex Auburn and Christian Donaldson will tear into some semi-decent death/thrash break for all too brief a time, or dial into the old school death metal that once inspired Cryptopsy in the 90s. For instance, my favorite moment on the entire record is the tremolo picked, evil sequence coming after the breakdown in "The Headsman" at around 3:20, where the airiness of the thin keys actually works, and the passionate lead capitalizes on the rhythm guitar, but they even go and fuck that up with the ensuing, boring nu-metal groove chords that make me wanna sprout dreadlocks and appear a Crow sequel soundtrack.

Pretty much the only aspects of The Unspoken King which don't disappoint are: a) the cover artwork by Jeik Dion, which is quite atmospheric and by that token has nothing whatsoever to do with the music; and b) the lead guitars, in general well composed and gleaming far above and beyond the vocals or rhythm sections. The lyrics are a mixed bag. Nowhere near as unhinged or compelling as the Lord Worm records, some are at least intelligent and meaningful (vague, personal or sociopolitical, and very 'deathcore'). But others are pretty shitty reads here, like "The Plagued", or "Bound Dead" which is so generic and emo that I had to slap myself a few times to realize I wasn't listening to Mutiny Within or All That Remains. Beyond that, The Unspoken King seems like quite a lot of effort expended into a product that I can't imagine anyone wanting. Did deathcore/metalcore fashionistas really want a brutal band of older Canadians jumping the bandwagon? I feel for certain that most death metal purists had no interest. There are a few moments in which the album reveals what it 'might have been' had the members' had their heads on straight, but really it's just a waste of everyone's time. Yours, mine, and the poor record store employees that had to expend an iota of effort unpacking and shelving the CD.

Verdict: Fail [2.5/10] (we are all confined, with nothing left to show)

http://cryptopsy.ca/

Whitechapel - Whitechapel (2012)

Tennessee's Whitechapel could hardly be called my favorite band in the deathcore spectrum. Not that I spend an inordinate amount of time mining the prospects in that particular strata, but their past output has been more or less a poster child for all the vapid, derivative grooving, shallower hardcore lyrics and uninspired vocal abuse tailor made for little more than teenaged moshing and high school strife. Enter their eponymous fourth full-length Whitechapel, and truth is once being hammered into that age old cliche 'every dog has its day'; for while it still retains some of the traits and flaws that critically marred my appreciation of its forebears, this album prances straight out the gates of the puppy pound and takes a big old, chocolaty dump on my sneaker-boots.

As with their contemporaries like Carnifex or Job For a Cowboy, I got a real sense from this music that Whitechapel felt an aching desire to expand itself into something more progressive. Evolutionary. Epic. And what I'm hearing from this album translates that intent into some admittedly intelligent and well implemented designs that, while not enough to concoct a masterpiece, are enough to quash its predecessors by an order or so of magnitude. Whitechapel is an album of 'moments' more than a fully-fleshed out experience. There were a good number of palm muted, chugging mosh rhythms strafing both the metalcore and djent genres that I felt ruefully unimpressed with, but where these guys deserve some credit is in how they pepper the aggression with ear sweetening leads, progressive metal leanings and what some might dub 'experimentation'. Not that their earlier albums were entirely void of minor escapes and nuances, but the 38 minute duration of this album is incredibly well balanced between the puerile brutality and something...more.

That 'more' is, itself, spread among the stars of possibility. You get some calming pianos in the intro to "Make It Bleed", before some intense surgical thrashing ensues; or strewn throughout "Devoid". There are slight passes at electronica/noise like the intro "(Cult)uralist" and "Section 8". Though a good portion of the album's grooves are directed at the sort of ballistic timekeeping present on the older albums, they are almost constantly including some little tremolo picked fusion guitar melody or other atmospheric distraction to create a depth that otherwise would have been lost upon the concrete foundation. The grooves themselves are often contrasted between Meshuggah-like jerking and the Earth Crisis/Slayer breakdowns that death- and metalcore were partially hatched from, though you can also experience some aggressive post-hardcore dissonance (check out "Section 8" which flirts with all three of these paradigms).

But more, you're getting a similar taste of the highly technical, modern riffing and soloing inherent to the younger Californian brutal death acts, and they've clearly sharpened their individual musicianship. The band has three guitarists, and they USE them, whether in tripling up the rhythms for a fat, pummeling excess or gauging off dual melodies against the third. The single major setback to the album would be the lyrics and vocals. The latter are decent enough when roving thuggishly along a guttural axis, but the various Deicide snarls and tough guy gang shouts used to complement them are less than complimentary. What's worse, while the music is far more cerebral and stimulating than past jaunts, the lyrics are still held back in that 8th grade hardcore mentality, where the world is all out to get you and you must battle it with the cliched script of social antipathy. Lots of 'lies', 'falling', 'bleeding', and 'fuck' as if I were listening to some second rate wrist-cutter metalcore demo from 1994.

I would LOVE for this band to attempt some poetry, using more interesting symbolism, abstraction, surreality, or even just a more technical vocabulary to streamline with their rhythmic chops. I realize that to some degree these guys are writing for their younger audience, who can appreciate a violent lift-up when he or she has been dumped by society or a significant other, or stabbed in the back by a former 'friend', but as the band ages, I think they should spit some more progressive wisdom in that microphone. But beyond this glaring distraction, I must admit that Whitechapel is entertaining more often than not. You could pull 3-4 songs off this thing in almost any order and come out with a far stronger listening session than the older albums combined. I also like the minimal approach to the cover. The information age, dystopic horrors of the past records weren't bad, and sawblades are nothing necessarily novel, but I like that it doesn't show or tell me anything, it just implies progress. It makes me want to dig deeper.

All told, this is a vast improvement in most departments. 2012 and the Metal Blade roster is full of surprises. First that Six Feet Under record, and now this? There are probably some Whitechapel fans who will find this less appealing due to its implicit variation, who don't give a shit about hearing the band challenge itself, they just wanna mosh. Plenty of that here for the dude-bros, but honestly, it's high time to grow up: something this Southern sextet has done nicely with this very album. I'll try not to track dog poo all over the rug on my way out the door.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.facebook.com/whitechapelmetal

Job for a Cowboy - Demonocracy (2012)

Much has been said about Job for a Cowboy's transition from an admittedly standard deathcore style to a more technical evolution that thrust them squarely into the death metal classification. Some people seem to rue the loss of their youthful moshing simplicity, while others loathe the modern tech death stylings so much to begin with that they're even less likely to accept the band's transformation. Others can't get over how much they hate the name, how the band grew out their hair, how their t-shirts and CDs are available at their local mall, or the brand of sneakers they wear. I tend towards a general rule: if I can head to any local VFW gig on the weekend and hear a half dozen derivative bands with dull and unimaginative chug grooves and overbearing metalcore growls that were more effective in the mid 90s, yet sound EXACTLY like your music, then chances are, you will not interest me. This is the reason I didn't care for the Arizona band's earlier material (in particular the divisive Doom EP).

And this is the very SAME reason that I applaud the band's effort to challenge itself, expand its musical potential and engage in a more strenuous discourse. The path they've taken on the full length albums has been hit or miss. Genesis in 2007 was a welcome surprise, but I found the sophomore Ruination (2009) somewhat less compelling. Sure, the style the band is courting is old hat for fans of technical or brutal death and death/thrash, but I don't see how anyone could listen through this latest, Demonocracy (cheesy title) and not come away at least impressed by the sheer amount of effort placed in its architecture. Riffs, riffs and more riffs seems to be the equation Job for a Cowboy had marked upon their chalkboard, and for about 40 minutes here there is an incessant onslaught of the things, some missing the mark but others driving the point that perhaps they shouldn't be taken so lightly. If Suffocation or Cryptopsy had written this album, with their own respective vocal styles applied, you'd probably never hear the end of it...

Now, I'm not saying I love Demonocracy, or that it's some year end contender, but there are certain qualities that I just can't deny. For one, the album is completely void of the worthless, dry groove sequences that characterize so many artists in this niche. There is always something else happening, whether a lead or another guitar, or something with the drums or vocals that helps keep the music blinding and incendiary. A metric ton of faster paced guitars and blasts are woven through "Children of Deceit", "Nourishment Through Bloodshed", "Black Discharge", and, really, most of the damned album. The guitars are taut, punctual, and more acrobatic than what you'd hear on any of their earlier releases, and the leads in particular seem well plotted to blend frivolous, warped excitement with a more majestic sense of melody. Job for a Cowboy keeps the music so damned busy that the ear is always drawn towards something, whether that's the frenetic performance of the bass and guitars or the rigorous foundation laid out by Jon Rice.

The one area in which they don't really excel musically would be the vocals, but then, they keep these varied up between the louder guttural bark and the higher pitched snarls enough so they don't become monotonous, and they're mixed pretty well against the structure of the music, with a number of effects thrown here or there to complement the brute force. The intro sequences, which often involve samples or simpler guitars that tease into the more complex labyrinth of carnal riffing, are well laid, and though the album as a whole tends towards a speedier element, there is enough dynamic range here to keep the ears perked, especially on the latter half of the track list. Favorites personally would include "The Deity Misconception" which is this relentless beast of a cut which blends dense, destructive rhythms with all manner of technical, clinical chokehold riffs and more muscle than you could pack on a dozen rhinos, "Black Discharge" which thrills with some of the athletic guitars, and "Imperium Wolves" for much the same reason.

The skills here have been sharpened, the lyrics are an average if ambiguous assault on politics, economics, and the media, and the Job for a Four Year Old jock mosh left has thankfully been left behind sitting by the curb. It's undoubtedly a more complex work than either of the previous full-lengths, on par with a lot of the modern West Coast death in terms of its skill level and songwriting, but I think I'd place it just behind Genesis as far as how memorable of an impact the songs had for me. This isn't likely something that I'd find much time for in a month or two, but it's well rounded and entertaining in the meantime, and love 'em or hate 'em, there is no shortage of aspiration. So, in summary: is Demonocracy irrepressibly nostalgic, cavernous and drawn from Autopsy and Incantation worship? No. Is it the stuff of legends? No. Is it surgical, polished, proficient and promoting those similar soulless aesthetics that divide the death metal audience straight down the middle? Most assuredly. Did I just answer whether or not you'd like the record with those last three questions? You bet your ass.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (tonight this adolescent says hello to his ruination)

http://www.facebook.com/jobforacowboy

Whitechapel - Recorrupted EP (2011)

There is certainly no love lost between myself and anything this Tennessee deathcore act has released to date, and with their new stopover EP, Recorrupted, I'm afraid the abject loathing must continue. This is not something meant to be so seriously, as it largely features remixes and a cover song, but regardless I found it to be weaksauce to the nth degree. A disheveled and disjointed teaser for whatever the band is planning next in the full-length realm, straight from the vaults of Metal Blade, who always seem to ply their fingers along the genuine, trendy pulse of extreme music.

In fairness, there are some elements to the sole new original track that, "Section 8" that I was not completely turned off by. After the obligatory ambient/electro lead-in we get a huge, guttural growl that heralds a multi-layered mesh of pumping djent grooves, dissonant industrial metal dressing and droning air raid picking melody. But within the span of a minute, we've already relapsed into some boring drudge of muted groove chugs which bounce along like faux dreadlocks at a Korn gig, pants so baggy that even when they jump da fuc up they're still dragging on the discarded butts, rolling papers and abandoned gig flyers. There is a particular, mechanical resonance that Whitechapel graft to this song that I thought showed some promise, and a nice dual lead melody that slices through its midsection like a plastic surgeon curbing a midriff, but in general I found that there were no memorable riffs throughout, it just sort of bludgeons along into its own grooving oblivion.

Hey, at least it's better than everything else on this EP... The cover of Pantera's "Strength Beyond Strength" manages to make the tracks inherent, ball-fisted mosh break into something dull and methodical. The 'Big Chocolate remix' of "Breeding Violence" seems as hackneyed as a lot of those old Fear Factory techno mixes. Lots of distorted, yawning Skrillex-like aesthetics and some noodling guitar melodies applied for texture. The Ben Weiman remix of "This is Exile" is mildly less annoying, as it takes a more mathematical application, but it feels like something Justin Broadrick would have left on the cutting room floor rather than add to some Godflesh compilation. And lastly, the Tennessee boys show their sensitive side, with an acoustic rendition of "End of Flesh" (these are all from their most recent album A New Era of Corruption). This is instrumental, and not bad as background noise, but neither is it remotely compelling.

Recorrupted is really just a bunch of odds and ends being used to tide over the deathcore fan, and many such releases (in all genres) aren't fit to scrape your boots with. I admit that I would not mind hearing Whitechapel drift further into the mechanistic industrial grooving space with their own writing on the next album, but I think it's time they ditched some of their more dull chugging breakdown sequences and attempted to vary up the vocals a bit, since they too seem like a pastiche of the trite and generic that no one will care about in a decade. Maybe a year. At any rate, I've no inbred opposition to deathcore and its variants if done well. Job for a Cowboy and even Carnifex have surprised me in the past, but I've yet to be impressed by this crew, though I can hear some latent potential slumbering inside them like a kraken on its murky leash.

Verdict: Fail [2.75/10]

http://www.myspace.com/whitechapel

Carnifex - Until I Feel Nothing (2011)

I'd be lying to claim that California's deathcore tween queens have produced anything besides a glossy, bludgeoning amateur hour to date, and yet their last record Hell Chose Me at least showed some minute traces of promise that the band could write and hold a riff in betwixt their underwhelming tendency to poison compositions with the most crass, formulaic 'been done' crowd pleasing pit chugs on their side of the Mississippi. Once upon a time, when it mattered most, hardcore bands, some of which later evolved into metalcore and then 'deathcore' bands, wrote emotional and important music and the crowd responded with their bodies. A breakdown wasn't just shoved into a song haphazardly, it was fresh and 'felt' by the audience and actually seemed somewhat powerful.

These days, though, it's a marketing commodity. Chug. Groove. Djent. Growl/snarl mechanically, depending on whether you wish to more closely emulate At the Gates, Carcass or both. Get the brosephs in the pit flailing around, and pick up the ladies (or boys) after the gig. I mention both of those bands, because clearly Carnifex derives much of its riffing inspiration, that is to say, the 'good' riffs here, from such sources, and with Until I feel Nothing, I am quite surprised to find that the band have written their strongest material to date, pushing the envelope a bit further than Hell Chose Me. Slaughter of the Soul era melodic death is crossbred with grisly Heartwork-like riffing, then dowsed in the familiar chugging Meshuggah or Earth Crisis breakdowns and then seasoned with a slight influence from more technical Canadian or New York brutal death metal outfits like Suffocation, Beneath the Massacre etc.

And you know something? For about 20 of the 32 minutes on this album, it actually works out rather well. I can't speak much for the vocals, which are the same competent but forgettable array of growls and snarls that sound like 90% of the deathcore or metalcore bands you've seen gigging in the past decade, but there are moments on this album where Carnifex integrates its varied impulses into something nearing bewitchment. Once the boring horror music gone banal grooves of the intro "Deathwish" disappears, we're treated to a pretty decent slew of riffs in "We Spoke of Lies" that will have all the Black Dahlia Murder fans in tears, even if it feels as if there are just a few too many (riffs). Deeper into the track list, "Dehumanize" successfully fuses spikes of melody over their churning, chugging substrate, and the bridge sequences is actually a pretty sweet escape into a melancholic, almost 'trip hop' before exploding back into blasted melodic death with dual tremolos bristling below Scott Lewis' familiar barking.

There are still quite a few dull mosh sequences here, some of which are bouncier akin to the whole 'djent' thing and some being more of a straight old metalcore onslaught, but to their credit they actually make every effort to dress them up as something more than garden variety fist fighting, where in the past they felt far more like they were just being funneled into the music so it would suit their genre and crowd participation. The production here is pretty much what you'd expect for a band on a good sized label, all instruments balanced with precision and only slightly favoring the guitars and vocals. And the members' musicianship has steadily grown in ability, but that was never really an issue for me in the past, the songs were just dull and commonplace. In addition, though the titles and 'personal' lyric matter here are just as uninspiring as on past albums, with the poignancy of a less 'pretty' Avenged Sevenfold, it feels that, at least on a few songs, some effort has been expended in their creation.

I might have been hard on this band's material in the past, as I often am with genre peers like Whitechapel or Job With a Cowboy, but it's only because I want this music to kick my ass and justify its own existence just like any other strain of metal. I would be thrilled to own albums in the deathcore or metalcore genres which bear the same resonance, passion and memorable writing as I've experienced with thrash, hardcore, death, doom or black metal. Until I Feel Nothing is leagues away from such importance, perhaps, and it's not an album I will likely find myself coming back to, since I'm too old for the mosh-first think-later scene and there are only a few tunes here that I'd dub 'catchy' or worth the time to listen through repeatedly. However, that said, I found this an improvement in most departments from their dreary outings like The Diseased and the Poisoned or the Love Lies in Ashes EP, and they seem destined to configure themselves into much more than they once were. With this fourth full-length, I feel like I'm firmly eating one foot. Next time, I hope they'll have me eating both.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (watch me dig my own grave)

http://www.myspace.com/carnifexmetal

Job For a Cowboy - Gloom EP (2011)

Arizona deathcore mavericks Job for a Cowboy seem to be very fond of the short form release, having peppered their career with a number of EPs and singles around their two full-lengths. Gloom is just the latest of these, expanding upon the Misery Reformatory single the band issued through iTunes this past April, and I have to say that it shows some of the band's strongest songwriting to date, as the band continues to expand and refine its sound into something more than the cliched, divisive sub-genre from which it first sprung. There are four tunes here, most following a similar dynamic pattern that marries explosive blasting to carefully crafted leads and faster breakdowns than the band have used in the past.

One thing I noticed when listening through "Misery Reformatory" and "Plastic Idols" is Davy's increased use of more tortured, raspy vocals, like a deathcore 'Dani Filth' perhaps. Try not to curl your lips up in disgust at the thought however, because these are actually helpful in carving out any potential monotony from the proceedings that might manifest through the ceaseless and percussive use of grunting. Another is that the band have become simply more 'musical', as with the lead sequence of "Misery Reformatory", where the rhythms guitars create an intrinsic bliss of blunt action as they lead into the great melody at 2:35 over the double bass. Of course, if you are simply looking for your ass to be kicked in ritual brutal death or deathcore fashion, you've got the monstrous "Execution Parade" and its concrete limb breaking foundation, or the acrobatic and high strung closer "Signature of Starving Power" which alternates between explosive thrust and tightly wound breakdowns with a bit of tech thrashing.

Love them or hate them, Job for a Cowboy have done their proverbial 'job' here by keeping the material tense and interesting, with an improvement in personal efficiency and proficiency. The kids can play their instruments, they can take a step back and write something better than what they've accomplished in the past, and even though they're unlikely to turn the heads of the crowd who loathe all things to have ever borne the -core suffix, much less the tech death or brutal tech scenes of modernity, they are succeeding where many others are not. Gloom is not the sort of release I'll be spinning very often, and it's not as good as their 2007 full-length Genesis, but there are a handful of explosive riffs and lead sequences that caught my ears on their continued adventure towards identity. A full-length of this quality with a marginal increase on riffing focus would not be unwelcome to my ears.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.jfacmetal.com/