Inherit Disease - Ephemeral (2016)

Signs your artwork might be better than your music: when you've got some sort of scaly, multi-headed slug-creature, or plural slug-things, with some human victim or patient that looks like its jacked into your squamous bio-matrix. Honestly I have no fucking idea what is going on with the cover of Ephemeral, but I know that it's awesome. That's not to say this third Inherit Disease full-length doesn't have other qualities to recommend it. In fact, if you enjoyed their fairly kickass sophomore Visceral Transcendence from 2010, you'll probably find plenty to like about this one as well. Hailing from that wave of Californian tech death acts that have been legion in the 21st century, these guys manage to scratch the itch you'd have for brutal, agile death metal in the vein of a Suffocation but without coming off too wanky or obnoxious.

This is just a rhythmic stew of bricklaying double bass, blasting, chugging and guttural fortitude which tries to lay claim to the suffocation and hopelessness of that cover artwork, and it does a pretty good job of placing you within a punishing labyrinth with absolutely no hope in sight. Sure, if broken down on a molecular level, the riff progressions from the Inherit Disease repertoire don't come across as very unique or distinct against such a wide landscape of similar acts, but they've got enough dynamic business going on at any one given time that I kept just on the edge of my seat. A palm mute might chug just one more time than I expect, or a blasted sequence might cut out into a roiling groove, or they might just squeeze in enough evil, clinical notes into that next tremolo picked segment that the brutal death maven which feasts upon my inner child perks up just enough to pay attention, which is always my worry when dealing with all these acts on labels like Unique Leader, Inherited Suffering, Pathologically Explicit, New Standard Elite, etc. Great at putting together products and expanding their rosters with acts that fit the bill, but sometimes a little too much.

Inherit Disease has a well-balanced attack, familiar but occasionally also offering up a little mystery about where they're going next, like in the closing track "Drone" and its dissonant, depressive note selection that pairs up well with the blasting intensity. The lyrics are a lot of fun to read through, and the production is fluid and clean without being too plastic or fake sounding. Definitely a band that should impress fans of groups like Deeds of Flesh, Severed Savior, Insidious Decrepancy, or other acts that have this comparable array of weaponry...who might not entirely shake off the shackles of their brutal tech/death niche and the facelessness it can create, but are clearly striving for something when they sit at the kit and amps to formulate their concepts. Ephemeral is maybe a fraction less appealing to me than its predecessor, but the band is no joke if you like those machine gun sounding muted riffs that whip up an uncaring, rapid, cold, otherworldly oblivion beneath the surface of all you hold warm and dear.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/InheritDisease

Inherit Disease - Procreating an Apocalypse (2006)

What is it about guttural frog-like vocals and pig squeal guitars that constantly draw our attention back to the landscape of stagnant, festering bodies of both men and titans that congests the endless, overdeveloped landscape of the modern death metal genre? Surely these conventions have become ripe to burst with the mold of their transgressions, eschewing nothing more than boredom to the ear that has been on the 'catcher' end of the relationship since the brutality of a Suffocation or Cannibal Corpse at the dawn of the 90s. Well, the California act Inherit Disease could not quite answer this question with their 2006 debut Procreating an Apocalypse, preferring rather to simply go with the flow and develop their metered carnage ever slowly across its 32 minute creation of carnage.

I didn't care much for this album when I first heard it years ago, and to be honest, my feelings today have not adapted strongly towards the favorable, having now been exposed to their recent sophomore opus Visceral Transcendence which ruptures this release with enhanced rhythmic compensation, brighter splatter and far better vocals, but Procreating an Apocalypse at least serves as a standard, inoffensive exercise in the patterns developed by acts like Suffocation, Deeds of Flesh, Severe Torture, Disgorge, and the like. Extremely fast based, percussive riffing dominates the big picture, but the band are constantly inserting dynamic breaks without descending into fuckwit slam stupidity, so they've got that much in their favor. The production for this debut was quite level, the hammering of the riffs and drums well matched to the alpha male toad guttural spew being hurled across its taut surface.

This is one of those pseudo-intelligent bands who are interested in expanding their vocabulary, to the benefit of us all (being spared the redundant layman rape and gore of many genre peers), this we have songs titled "Dementia Cephalus", "Catathymic Rage", "Dissimulate Invalidity" and my favorite "Imprisoned and Afflicted by Aberration". I admit there were a small handful of words I felt compelled to look up, and I actually appreciate that. Musically, the band is nearly as sharp as their lyrical strategy, with a number of twists and turns that celebrate the tradition of bludgeoning, forceful death momentum akin to fellow Californians Severed Savior or Sepsism. The band likes to flesh out its rhythmic sense through "Myiasis", punching bass and scattered, splattered sequences of controlled mute mutations that are ever arching and descending through the band's futurist, nihilistic bent.

It's all very level, and the performances are all around adequate. It fits like a glove to the Unique Leader roster. The vocals do tend towards the monotonous, but this is expected within the genre, as not everyone can channel a Lord Worm the first time out. As a series of punishing platitudes, there is much potential within the Inherit Disease camp that seems to not yet be implemented to efficiency, or truly exploited beyond the level of competent exhibition here. Quickly I became tired with the record, not for its lack of effort but for its lack of real menace. When lucky, a dark and gripping riff might manifest once in a particular track, like the closing moment of "Procreating an Apocalypse" itself, but the rest falters in comparison, the stringent kicking about of ideas that lock in step like a child who follows his Lego kit blueprints to perfection, but has not yet discovered his inherent love for the process of tinkering them into the final product. In context to their recent, praiseworthy addition to the pantheon of rupturing tech death, I can appreciate Procreating an Apocalypse slightly more than my initial exposure, but its not essential unless you truly seek out any and all examples of this archetypal Californian slaughter-surge.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (my core perturbed, ungodly time bomb)

http://www.myspace.com/inheritdisease

Inherit Disease - Visceral Transcendence (2010)

Something is seriously happening in California of late, because its quickly become the haven for a large number of technical, brutal death metal acts that are savvy to both the benefits of aesthetic packaging and songwriting that can string the listener along without loss of interest in what otherwise might be a dull, expended category. Inherit Disease are another band joining the ranks of Decrepit Birth, Severed Savior, The Faceless, Odious Mortem, Arkaik, and others as they chisel out a huge block of territory to explore, and if the gorgeous cover art to their sophomore Visceral Transcendence does not captivate your attention, then the band's mesh of methodical, percussive riffing occasionally infused with spry lead work and crazy bass lines are sure to draw you into their spell.

There are some who would immediately pigeonhole and dismiss Inherit Disease as another of those 'generic tech death' acts who automatically fail at cool as they do not produce a recording which sounds like Autopsy or Incantation circa 1992, just as there are some curmudgeons who resist the lure of the cell phone, the iPod, the escalator and the motor vehicle. Believe me, while this Californian act is not 100% unique and they don't deign to be, they write songs with such a bludgeoning force and under current of tightly wrought, pumping vitality that I found them not only engaging but actually pretty damn memorable. There is the occasional squeal of annoyance, and perhaps a riff here or there that doesn't enthrall, but in all its a well produced, tautly executed work of hostility. Their roots lie in the obvious influences of Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Gorguts and the like, but I must commend them for their excellent drumming, qualified chugging momentum and for never at any moment devolving into flatulent, noodling tech jocks.

In fact, the first few seconds of the opener "Vessel of Inhumanity" are about as wanky as this band gets, with a flight of wild guitar over some fabulous, plucky bass strokes. Its almost as if the band wanted to tease you into thinking they were something they aren't, and then a brief few measures later dump concrete on you from the back of a mixing truck. From this point on, it's fucking hammer time, as dynamic chugging onslaughts consistently thread you through a vortex of carnal clobbering that changes its pace as often as a cold, calculating food processing plant batters, stretches and seasons its constituent ingredients into a final, digestible product, and I mean nothing negative by such a comparison, because this is one factory of bone grinding you would do well to lay down your currency upon.

Appreciable excursions into butchery include "Hivemind", with its writhing old school death blasts that cede to machine-like artillery grooves while the bass flips and flabbergasts amidst the unrelenting, pulverized certainty. "Digital Rapture" creates a spastic, discordant turmoil through which the brick house muted mayhem contorts into conquest, and "Prolific Dominance" is dense and distressful as the cautionary, guttural vocals hem and haw with the constant shifting mosh. Note that Inherit Disease are not quite a 'slam' band. The grooves are many and they are very well plotted, but not the garden variety crap spewed by so many deathcore or lesser USDM acts. I also appreciate that this is a band concerned with technology and human futurism rather than a typical, gore-soaked slasher film tribute, as "Nanoscourge" and "Beyond the Tyranny of Entropy" scurry through tales of cataclysm, both synthetic and naturally occurring.

If you're in the mood to have barbed wire fed in one ear and out the other, all your mushy gray matter and rhythmic resistance delivered on the far end in a sick jubilee of brains and chain link, then Inherit Disease provide you with just the right, hostile incentive. Individually, the elements at play here do not promise innovation, but taken as a sum, crushing statement this is an enjoyable album which trumps their debut and catapults them into the ranks of promising West Coast tyranny that might rule our roost for a long time coming. Resist at your own peril, but not at mine.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.myspace.com/inheritdisease