Album Year: 2012
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
Location: Munich, Germany
Review:
To start with, Over Your Threshold is from Munich, Germany.
They play, what I think, is a very unique style of Progressive Death Metal. Blending fast pace drumming, with complicated guitar and bass work, and powerful vocals to round everything out.
However, they also have lots of awesome guitar solos,
as well as calmer passages to a lot of the songs on the album.
With first listening to it, I was having a very hard time thinking of who they're similar to,
and it's a really hard call to make.
There's some elements of Black Metal with some of the tremolo picking,
Folk tinted riffs with some of the slowed down melodies, but with all the different styles I can pick out in this I can still hear the main element of Death Metal.
This album is only 43 minutes long, but it delivers in so many ways.
The first song "Cortical Blindness" packs some heavy punchs with an intense pace right out of the gate.
The first few riffs of the song feel a little thrashy, which I like a lot as the riffs are extremely catchy and get
you banging your head. About half way through, they take it in a totally different direction
with a sweet solo and a more Melodic Death Metal feel to the whole thing.
The following song, "Contextual Fluctuating" follows a similar style to "Cortical Blindness" but
it's a little eviler sounding and the smooth, fretless bass tones are just really nice to hear.
At 2:43 in, there's a riff that sounds so good but at the same time, makes me want
to quit playing guitar with how technical it sounds.
The 3rd song of the album, "Obscure Mind Stasis", is probably my favorite off the album right now.
It sounds like the kind of song you would hear when going out into war, quick and fast start to get going, followed with a nice little solo/interlude before jumping right back in with the groovy
and catchy melody. They throw in a sexy solo around the half way mark to this 6 minute monster and then finish off the rest of the song with technicality
and style.
I'm not going to do a song by song review, because I could go on for a
long time about each one, so I'm going to keep it short. The remaining 6 songs
on the album are all done very much the same as the others.
By that, I don't mean they all sound the same, I mean that they are all very technical,
very well written and composed. The guitars, drums, fretless bass impressed me to
no end with each song I heard and the vocals are perfectly matched.
One song, I will make a special mention to is "Desolation Row", it is probably the
heaviest and most hellish song on the album.
It sounds like it couldbe the devils theme song.
In closing, I would recommend Over Your Threshold to you if you enjoy Technical or Progressive Death Metal, Black Metal and Polish Death Metal.
For fans of Obscura, Hate, Skeletonwitch, Amorphis, and Behemoth.
Overall: 9.5/10
The album "Facticity" is due for release August 28th, 2012 on Metal Blade Records.
Review by: Marty DePietro of Fivebyfive Records