Decrepit Birth - Diminishing Between Worlds (2008)

Sometime between the years of 2003 and 2008, as Decrepit Birth was plotting its sophomore assault for Unique Leader, Bill Robinson and crew realized that they were actually musicians, and not just fancy troglodytes who knew how to club their prey down at insane speeds. As a result, Diminishing Between Worlds was a dramatic improvement over ...And Time Begins, to the extent that one could argue the first track alone "The Living Doorway", possessed more musical value than the entire debut. A lot of this has come through the evolution of Matt Sotelo as a guitarist and all around musician: the man fucking OWNS this effort, employing more melodic, technical and varied guitar work in addition to bass lines that can be distinguished from the album's roiling, brutal undertow. And all of this was accomplished without sacrificing extremity! If anything, Diminishing Between Worlds is just as brutal as the debut, only in more than one way. It's as if prehistoric fireworks suddenly alighted the sky over a stolid, rocky ridge, and then molten inspiration began to flow free and disintegrate anything in its path.

Decrepit Birth was not alone in this transition, as a good number of the other Californian bands (Odious Mortem, The Faceless, Arkaik, Inherited Disease) also were making strides forward in musicianship and quality; but clearly they made a broader metamorphosis between albums, than, say, Severed Savior made between Brutality is Law and Servile Insurrection. While the first album drew almost entirely upon its Suffocation and Deeds of Flesh influences, Diminishing Between Worlds tries its hands at weaving threads of Death, Cynic and Atheist through its punishing foundations. While Robison's growl is the one constant binding it all together, the guitars are fucking frenetic to the point where Sotelo is often engaged in overmuch frivolous leads. He's certainly upped the ante with this 'big reveal' of ability, but more important to me than the indulgent, screaming lead sequences were the clinical melodies being invested into the rhythmic matrix. Radar! Radar! Other strings have been discovered on the guitar. Prepare antiaircraft measures on the double! Granted, there is a certain degree of wankery involved: almost like he succumbed to a Lawnmower Man level influx of ideas and couldn't contain all the newfound brilliance...not all the leads and melodies are very catchy...but even so, there is so much more of note(s) happening, a refined fusion/jazz undercurrent

Decrepit Birth had become compelling, folks, or at least, compelling to those who've an interested in this sort of 'all around package' of technicality and chops. Yes, that means if you fucking loathe death metal beyond Mortal Throne of Nazarene, Severed Survival and Slowly We Rot, then this is clearly not your cup of tea. And it wasn't just in the guitars. Matt's bass lines are smooth and complex, joined to the guitar melodies without merely 'following' them. Atmospheric synthesizers, often like distant choirs, are used sparsely as a background enhancement to the music's otherworldly nature, and clean guitars are introduced here in the instrumental "The Enigmatic Form". They had a new drummer for this, KC Howard, and he did a great job of following in Yeung's footsteps. Perhaps a fraction less agile, but his hard hitting really helps cover some of the aggression lost by the switch towards higher pitched notation, and he's just about as mechanical and monstrous as you'd find from this particular scene. Bill Robinson had also improved. His natural timbre wasn't all that different, but he sustains some great gutturals that decay off into the atmosphere, and the timing and percussion of individual verse lines seems more inviting to the imagination.

Most importantly, Diminishing Between Worlds is just fucking loaded with great riffs. The song quality is quite consistent throughout, and while they'll occasionally throw out a bland pattern or two, the majority of the melodic riffs continuously draw the ear. The song lengths are stretched to help contain this wealth of new ideas, but the album still clocks in at a tame 45 minutes, about 50% more than the barren debut. "Reflection of Emotions", "Dimensions Intertwine" and "Through Alchemy Bound Eternal" all beg the question: what might Suffocation have sounded like if Chuck Schuldiner joined their lineup in the late 90s and was given some serious creative input? The external and internal explorations of this sophomore seek to answer that question, emblazoned in cutting edge musicianship, and philosophical (if a bit bland and bordering on mumbo jumbo) lyrics. Not to say that this is perfect: it's not a personal favorite tech/progressive death metal effort, but clearly a switch turned on, the emergence of a bright voice in the genre. One that would grow slightly in intensity for the next album, Polarity, which was less of an overall evolutionary step, but ramped up the riffing quality even further.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (condemned to the everlasting)

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Decrepit Birth - ...And Time Begins (2003)

Like a number of their other Californian peers, my investment in the music of Decrepit Birth has directly correlated to their inclination with their movements towards further musicality. In retrospect, they've grown into quite a fascinating, progressive death metal powerhouse with a solid grasp of melody and contrast, but turn back the clock about a decade, and you've got a pretty average brutal death metal act that struggled to distinguish itself from numerous others. I remember a bit of buzz over ...And Time Begins, but I feel like people are often too forgiving or have pretty low standards when it comes to this niche. For me, it's not simply about sick drumming and gorgeous, gruesome, cover art (both of which this debut clearly possesses). One of my criteria for brutal/technical death is the following: if I can listen to a single track at random from your album, and receive just about everything I need to know, all of its potential emotional impact; and then subsequently confirm this with numerous runs through the entirety of the play length, then there is something seriously lacking...

A criteria from which, unfortunately, the Decrepit Birth debut failed to redeem itself. The inaugural battering of the Californians was essentially a Suffocation clone with a few Cannibal Corpse-inspired riff structures. Also with a strong hint of their fellow statesmen and label mates Deeds of Flesh, not only during the faster, percussive spurts of muted guitars, but also the very design of their logo. ...And Time Begins is brutal to a fault, and it's performed with no dearth of competence or dexterity, but the fact is I can select about 2-3 minutes of material here and have heard all I really care to know. The music falls short of evoking any sort of true menace or evil atmosphere, it's merely jocked up on steroids and attempts to steamroll its listenership into stunned submission, only it doesn't have the riffing strength to do so. It entirely wastes its meticulous and clinical nature on boring rhythm guitar progressions that lack depth and variation. On a strictly rhythmic level, there were some flighty and bombastic passages scattered throughout the 30 minutes which, under a better choice of notation, might have shined, but they're thrown away on predictable and uninteresting streams of palm mutes that don't show a lot of effort beyond their sheer acrobatics.

They try to vary it up occasionally, like the roiling, dissonant grooves that open "Of Genocide" which feel like a mix of Consuming Impulse Pestilence and Bloodthirst era Cannibal Corpse, but those don't seem to pay off either. The vocals are a genre standard, blunt guttural with a little growled out sustain, once in a while flirting with a toilet bowl tone; perfectly suitable for the style, and never really the forte of Decrepit Birth even on their ensuing, compelling efforts, but yet another element that fails to evoke any sort of menace. I mean, let's lay it on the line: when I see a horrific, enthralling cyclone of lost souls or demons against an alien, harrowing landscape of cyclopean, Lovecraftian proportions, I want the music it represents to scare the living shit out of me. I want to be afraid. I'm PAYING to be afraid. But the constant, spurious concussions being wrought with the guitars, vocals and drums feel like little more than an exercise. Like the soundtrack to a crowd of neanderthals grunting and wagering the bones of their latest kills over a chicken fight. Or death eagles, or whatever the shit they used back in those times when they crawled out of their caves for a social.

Me Oog! Me crush you! Imagine that if it were repeated about a million times, accelerated and decelerated and then layered across numerous tracks and tempos, and you've got a fair approximation of the range of these concise tunes. That'd actually be fine if there was a riff or two worth a damn in each. Not gonna happen here! Tim Yeung turns in his usual, mercenary brand of annihilation, but he's almost overworking himself, because he's not used to support anything worthwhile. The production of the guitars and drums is decent, a slightly more iron clad approximation of the Deeds of Flesh records of this time, but I felt like the bass playing was largely lost in the shuffle. The chugging simply crushes it to a single flat dimension. Lyrics, which eschew the stereotypical gore for more cosmic and nihilistic themes, are honestly the best part of ...And Time Begins (aside from Dan Seagrave's artwork), but they too are suffocated by the bludgeoning, bland songwriting. As I was revisiting this, I kept thinking to myself: put something here! A lead! A sample! A keyboard! A melody! A REAL RIFF. Decrepit Birth would not oblige me here, and though it's hard to be peeved in retrospect, since they too were aware of such limitations and evolved significantly, I'll oblige in return by putting any thoughts of this debut to rest.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10] (a prison so perfectly concealed)

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Decrepit Birth - Polarity (2010)

Californians Decrepit Birth made an instant splash amidst the brutal tech death underground with their 2003 debut ...And Time Begins, but I didn't find myself falling for their mix of extremity and excess musical prowess until the the second album, Diminishing Between Worlds, which came out a half decade later in 2008. Like other bands from their coast Odious Mortem, Severed Savior, The Faceless, and Abysmal Torment, they're one of those 'whole package' deals: amazingly coherent and tight with their instruments, capable of writing damn near limitless volley of riffs, and brutal enough in the breakdown department to please the less demanding, violent element of death metal showgoers. Polarity sees the band expand upon their prior effort slightly, with a touch more musical aptitude and willingness to expand and incorporate extra classical and progressive influence to their compositions.

You won't hear a track go by on this record without some well-written, flurry of melodic scales and strokes that perks the ears directly to attention, and it is the balance of this ambition against the expected, double kick/blasted forays that ultimately makes it a success. The vocals are your typical, vomited gutturals, and I feel that at times they feel a little too one-track and uninspired when compared against the music itself, occasionally joined by a snarling companion, but it is a rare death metal band these days with a vocalist that can tear your entrails out and then step on them, so its best in many cases to play it 'safe', if you can call a grown man hammering you with orcish grunts 'safe'. The mix is professionally executed, with all notes available to the ear and a steady balance of instruments. Decrepit Birth put a lot of work into this record, and you'll be able to process every second of tension and release that the band thrives upon.

Polarity seems to me what be the natural extension of the Florida legends Death had they advanced into a more brutal framework instead of sputtering out with a weak and powerless effort like The Sound of Perseverance. You can hear Chuck's influence in a lot of the thin, crisp melodic riffing which takes the inspiration of a Death, Symbolic or Individual Thought Patterns to another level when set against the incredible, forceful precision of the drummer and rhythm guitars. Scales abound here, given just the right processed gleam to contribute an ever twisting distraction for the 38 minutes of the album. Often a keyboard will be used to further push the atmospheric envelope, and the band's brainy, cosmic lyrics match up very well with the almost scientific methodology of the performance. In this regards, they are very similar to the act Obscura, so fans of those Germans that haven't already boarded this interstellar train should step up, because now is the time.

The album moves consistently from the gently woven melodic patterns that christen "A Departure of the Sun (Ignite the Tesla Coil" to the grand sorrow that burdens the simpler chord and clean guitar selection of the instrument outro "Darkness Embrace", and the entire work is reined in under 40 minutes, with no composition becoming so indulgent or far out that you would ever become exhausted (assuming you enjoy this style). I found some rapture in the acrobatic bounce and kick of the title track "Polarity"; the thick hammering of the chugged rhythm guitars, harmonic spills and storm ascension of "The Quickening of Time"; the unswerving juggernaut of percussive picking and sweeps that realize "Symbiosis"; and the great melodies spitting through the eye of "The Resonance", gravity optional. However, there really is not a single track which will not offer some enticement, even the 1 minute hyper riffing prog-death barrage of "A Brief Odyssey in Time". It's remarkable how much Decrepit Birth can compact into a moment.

If you whine and cuss about all things modern in death metal, then let me state, Polarity is just not for you, nor is anything else by this band. Here, they skirt along the boundaries of what tech death is capable of, but I don't think they honestly escape the universal pull of familiarity all that much. The vocals are not quite excellent, but so few are in the modern death landscape, and as a percussive symbiont to the drumming, they suffice. What Decrepit Birth do best here is sculpt an engaging onslaught of music which leaves the gore and butchery of the genre far below, in terrestrial urban chaos, while this band escapes to seed and explore new worlds, as if they were a rocket ship of symphonic-minded, brutal ballast, a Stanley Kubrick sweeping his vision across the pulsing notes of the firmament.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (balanced in the paradox of contradictions)

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