Gorod - A Perfect Absolution review

Year : 2012
Genre : Technical Death Metal
Label : Listenable Records
Origin : France
Rating : 9.2 / 10

Buy it now

France's premiere technical death fleet is tearing through mere chaos to deliver 38 minutes taken directly from the infinite attributes of its radically capricious originator. With its latest full length declaration "A Perfect Absolution", Gorod makes an efficient move towards the harmonic hook in the sense that the release is packed with full musculature music that exhibits noteworthy propensity to offer masterfully sculpted semi-prolonged motifs to hop unto, while maintaining the intoxicating level of musical intricacy and playful sonic brutality that are trademark ingredients of the genre. The album shows great consistency and content-richness that takes the flow of things galaxies beyond the usual field of operation of miserable criticism, - remember, the piece of art reigns above the critic - a circumstance which is starting to become pretty much "just natural" with legit technical death. This LP is all about the precious readiness to summon top of the heat sonic rabidity with a good amount of metaphoric sonic outposts in the fabric that openly seek to convey a more easily approachable anatomy, and it is safe to say that these segments are flattering their chosen archetypes with a skill set that is very rewarding and supremely pleasant to be treated by. Read on to find out more about those.


Technical death metal and its valiant mission to worship chaos rampant-unalloyed is taken mad serious on the delivery, an artistic behavior that bends to the command of scientific sonic warfare that tolerates no limits other than the ones worth violating. Gorod sports a truly stellar Godzilla mode that turns your pineal gland into a raging maniac on spot, - tazer cannon not included - its technical breaks are compact and efficient, and the one aspect I have been telling you about that I feel characterizes this release, is indeed a pronounced urge to play around with different subgenres in a fruitful attempt to "Gorodify" those without any concept of failure and mercy regarding these key initiatives.

The rhetorical elements to be found are numerous and somewhat/entirely subjective, while the music is complex enough so it can reveal novelty even upon the 111th listen, - I did not yet try it, I just know it instinctively - and this especially is true concerning the very core of the spin, which submissively belongs to fractal-level death metal. With that being said, I picked up herein the musical rhetorics of exigent progressive metal with the promise of going death metal any time, muscular metalcore is equally a part of the fray, - easy, there are no emo choruses - and the band takes the well positioned liberty to deliver radical surprises on occasion, like with track number 5, "5000 At The Funeral". This is a brief-, very well executed moment of smooth jazz all in the tradition of manouche swing with a well defined blunt, just notice how the music exhibits a chord progression-, a harmonic environment that reeks Summertime all the - aua. - time.

With this 38 minute full length, Gorod brings to you an eloquent technical death metal statement that guarantees a lot of pure gold content to soak your ears into. This genre is supremely demanding, and the only reason I score this robust release a tad tamer than what very recent technical death metal has brought to us, is that the other early TDM contribution of 2012, Spawn of Possession's Incurso clocks in at 52 minutes. Other than that, I love them both, and I'm pretty sure that you're loving them, too, if you are serious about what you are giving your listening time to.

Rating : 9.2 / 10

GyZ at Bandcamp.

If you want, check out my music

and / or

Buy me beer. Read more!

Obscura - Illegimitation review

Year : 2012
Genre : Cybernetic Black Metal, Technical Death Metal
Label : Relapse
Origin : Germany
Rating : 9.2 / 10

Relapse shoots an Obscura compilation towards your way through an illegal space-time rift, and this is not the worst thing that can happen to you. This German formation, while now it is one of the premiere technical death metal acts the source of all things cares to regard as its own, had its fair share of different musical directions cultivated in its past.

The Illegimination compilation spin-package is a tasteful choice to familiarize yourself with the anatomy of the music that was the source the current variant of the band's language been born amidst. This package gives you 48 minutes of fragmented Obscura activity, ranging from 2003 to 2011. Read on to find out more about this compilation.


The disc is divided into three parts, each dedicated to a certain period. (Of the band, you know?) The first four tracks belong to the Illegimitation demo, released in 2003. These declarations have a keen affection towards traditional black metal, yet the production values are more bombastic and punchy than the general shape of the subgenre cares to dictate, if, at all. Indeed, black metal is ready to work even with modest production values, once the notes are played with the "right" - ha. - mindset.

I tend to think that Obscura's early interest in black metal partly was fueled by the band's curiosity of how black metal would sound if being resonated through steroids, and the results are pretty convincing. Unmistakably the black kind of metal, with an occasional propensity to turn into a blackened kind of death metal during the latter section of the first segment of the record.

Throughout the second region of the disc, that which gives you three robust tracks to showcase fine entries from the preproduction era of Cosmogenesis, - we are in 2006 - the band's readiness to render complexity for the mere-, admirable sake of it, is more pronounced. The death metal tint is more infectious this time around, yet the flow of the music chooses to settle and keep one foot on the field of black. Initially, at least. A propensity to offer instrumental breaks bordering on dignified, epic power metal of cheese-free beauty is notable, while the black metal riffage is revealed with the attitude of the death subgenre. The consecutive and the third addition from this class are stone-orthodox death metal entries with pig squeals and whatnot. The music still kicks all kinds of monumental butts, oftentimes exhibiting a particularly rabid groove metal character. Philip Anselmo approves. The fractal complexity that Obscura gets famous of in a future that these songs keep in store for the band, are "but" promises for now.

The third-, and concluding session of this compilation LP gives you three covers of various - uhm - other bands. A Death, an Atheist, and a Cynic cover, all recorded in a session that took place in 2011. Highly legit deliveries that do not seek to blame the subject matter, they instead adore and praise them with true interest in their respective forms and anatomy. If you are not yet familiar with Obscura, then this compilation is a good starting point to remedy the situation, while obtaining Omnivium will give you an insight of the recent-, technical death metal attitude of this eminent German ensemble.

Rating : 9.2 / 10

GyZ at Bandcamp.

If you want, check out my music

and / or

Buy me beer. Read more!

Spawn of Possession - Incurso review

Year : 2012
Genre : Technical Death Metal
Label : Relapse
Origin : Sweden
Rating : 9.3 / 10

Buy it now

Spawn of Possession's Incurso is a robust technical death metal release with 52 minutes of - not at all surprisingly - super-intense fractal complexity. The Sweden ensemble of illustrious characters put together a delivery which is a worthy flow of ripost to what the recent era of this exceptionally demanding subgenre has graced upon us.

Obscura, Gorod and Blotted Science are quick to come to mind when witnessing the rampant ways of this delivery, which, no doubt, has the obscene amount of work in it that, make no mistake, a technical death metal release necessarily demands during its own creation process, during its own evolution. Read on to find out more about this slick rebellion against silence.


The miserable critic finds itself in a pleasant position when graced by such eminent content as this disc is, as the music on this record simply reigns above the tools of criticism, regardless of the - phah! - sophistication level of those tools. The reason behind this is simple enough : technical death metal, when done even "remotely properly", is able to reveal such a pronounced index finger into the face of the epitome of all expectations, that the causality of being subjected to seemingly random-, but, in reality, extremely rigorously organized sonic content, to THIS very day equates to one of the most intense listening experiences a human nervous system can go through.

Technical death metal is a bitch AND a very mean at that, because it tolerates no lies, nor shortcuts. It only tolerates the pair of desire and devotion to submit to the steep urge to flatter the blind potentiality of chaos, with intent to draw million eyes and million faces for it, and pay for its intricate patterns with Godzilla workhours. In short, technical death metal already is in the position that it tolerates ONLY top of the heat audio content, no exceptions.

Everything less and anything less kills this music on spot. All bands that are playing technical death metal, need to create top of the heat content, because the standards already are super-high, courtesy of central declarations of the subgenre. As such, there is no need-, nor method for me on my part to "properly" tell you about the technical death metal music you will find on this spin, because words are not capable to reflect the experience of this music. All I can say, is that it is legit technical death metal, and that is NOT the same as saying it is legit power metal. I guarantee you that you will find a legit power metal band in every closet, you just need to search for a bit.

Delivering in this genre is much more demanding than, say, to create a superb progressive metal album, in which orthodox methodologies to narrate a musical thought, are totally acceptable. (Hell, even James LaBrie is totally acceptable in progressive metal!) In technical death metal, only intricately revealed chaos is acceptable, and everything else is dishonesty towards the intent-, towards the mission of this music. Beethoven is a technical death metal musician, have zero doubt about that, ladies and gentlemen.

This record brings intricately sculpted sonic chaos for 52 minutes. The experience, as hinted, is reminiscent in nature to the music you will find on the other great releases I have linked the review of for you in the intro section of this text. This sonic declaration of Spawn of Possession is greeted by its similarly monumental peers as a worthy partner to glorify the technical death metal subgenre with. The minds behind these albums are contemporary musical heroes willing to put tremendous workhours to bring you this level of deliciously obscene sonic intricacy, and you need to check them out as soon as possible, in my opinion.

Rating : 9.3 / 10

GyZ at Bandcamp.

If you want, check out my music

and / or

Buy me beer. Read more!

Simulacrum - Master of the Simulacrum review

Year : 2011
Genre : Progressive Metal
Label : Inverse Records
Origin : Finland
Rating : 7.0 / 10

Buy it now

It is very easy to understand where Finland's Simulacrum is coming from : imagine a relatively life-capable blend of Dream Theater and Symphony X, add a tint of - BUT! a tint of - super-fruitful technical deathmetal, and - kind of - spoil it with blunt vocal performance on top. The album starts out eminently, keeping this form up with a sexy blend of middleweight metal rhetorics and caressing synth work á lá Faith No More. The music though, is of entirely different fabric, showing rabid faithfulness to a ripe-, but relatively scantly realized inner image of melodic progressive metal. Production values guarantee a slim frame with elegant musculature, and, as such, the sonic mass of this delivery hardly if ever seeks to intimidate your receivers. The least efficient ingredient, in my opinion, is the vocal contribution, but nothing that can't be perfected later on. The melodic route-decisions fail to touch me. Exceptions are present, but nothing beyond that.

The album shows a variety of different key characteristics, - apart from the dramatic teddybear singing - as the delivery no doubt seeks to serve you all the ingredients established by its key inspirators : Dream Theater, Symphony X. Fortunately, the album has the capacity to render certain focal elements with great success, while other elements are teaming up with the Hippopotamus League to indulge mercilessly in any fashion and in any substance that it feels comfortably for THEM. Read on to find out more about this decent progressive metal attempt.


The melodic body of work herein is very orthodox progressive me(t)al with the highly unsurprising intent of seeking out the field between power metal and hard rock that is bordering on dramatic musical, but the collision between harmonies and the super-persistent vocal work lacks that special-, ripe playfulness factor that hacks your nervous system on spot and urges you in real time to revisit a track. Such a sentence shouldn't be hanging in the air without justification, so I attempt to clarify my claim. Listen to the track "The Re-Formation Show" from Anubis Gate's latest album, and hear - in my opinion - utterly playful and ripe progressive metal. If the chorus of that song does not strike you as brilliant, then I don't know what to tell you. This Simulacrum album, while enthusiastic as an adolescent around a rubber porn star, has a whole lot of galaxies to cover yet to be regarded with the same ave. But it has 6 minutes and 15 seconds of jawdropping stimuli, so stick around.

I don't want to be (all that much) evil with this record, so I will tell you the elements I think it shows superb form, even bursts of brilliance with and through. It mainly is via the experimental tendencies. These leanings are far from being integral and find no cunning to reign fruitfully homogeneous in their efficiency. Laboriously built, sweat-reeking pseudo-complexity - piano and distorted guitar playing the same phrase in unison??, WOW, you rascal!, you!, you KNOW how to treat a snob! < - irony. - oftentimes gets mistaken herein for true experimental compositional work ready to fuck your mind for its own enjoyment like this monster does, and the band has an occasional hard time distinguishing their solid moments from self-indulgent wankery that is happening for THEIR enjoyment and definitely not for yours.

Now for the worse parts.

The album, I think, looks the worst when it seeks for the epic sorrow of James LaBrie and finds the horrid thing, and it looks best when the experimental segments have a continuous narrative to tell, and not just casual experimentation of interconnected elements of complexity that have no actual knowledge or shared experiences about each other at all. One song I find absolutely stellar on this album, is track number 5, called "Flagiston". It is a hyper-complex psyche-robber sci-fi instrumental revolving around swarms of nanobots chasing your hide to rewrite your DNA. (As a start.) The band shows surprising ripeness and top tier chops herein, and a clear set of correlations is notable between the more tame instrumental language they speak in this song and that of Blotted Science, Obscura and Gorod. In other words, this track, called Flagiston, is as superb of a technical death metal build as it is a fabric with tight progressive elements. The definite peaking of the album, and, if this LP would bring this quality all the way throughout, then I naturally would have no other choice than to rate it well above 9. Not that it is that important. Remember, the art always is superior to its miserable critic, no exceptions.

The band knows how to entertain you in legit fashion, but are not always willing to pay that price on this record, in my opinion, and sometimes satisfies with alibi. The music on this release ain't as serious-, nor as heavy or thrilling YET as in the company of Anubis Gate or as on Symphony X's latest, and, the haunting feel of the 1986 metal pop festival is an enthusiastic invitee of the developments, too, hiding among a set of much more tolerable-, even likable entities. With such delicate deliveries as Flagiston on board though, you definitely want to keep an eye on this promising progressive metal band.

Rating : 7.0 / 10

If you want, check out my music

and / or

Buy me beer. Read more!

Gorod - Transcendence EP review

Year : 2011
Genre : Technical Death Metal
Label : Willowtip Records, Listenable Records
Origin : France
Rating : 9.6 / 10

The Transendence EP from French superheavyweight technical death metal formation Gorod brings you a package with exceptional readiness to offer flamboyant variation of mood and behavior. The first track, called "Earth Pus" - clap your hands for the dude with the title idea - is an intense album opener that, in my opinion, as a direct escapee from a recent day Obscura LP. Radical-, no holds barred melodic work tears silence with a constant hunt for the bidding of its own capriciousness to see if it wants the fucking riff or not, finding plenty of space to freely and inventively lament beside the blast beat and the singer dude, who happens to have a charismatic nervous breakdown each time he is opening the mouth. So things are pretty acceptable.

The second track is a more gently shaped direction that makes use of a buff acoustic setting, one that is pretty much steroid unplugged in character. Steroid unplugged IS good for your awareness, my love. The music exhibits a nice variety of surprising sonic traits and aspirations via the myriad kinds of minor mood-references it connects with each other to form the flow of the experience. I'm picking up vibes of bittersweet bourbon-schanzon, quite traditional Shakira-asshaker Latin that borders on Al Dimeola's take on circus music, - whenever he shreds madly, he plays circus music, no? - supported efficiently by a haunting-, abundantly note-rich feel that is one favorite of aforementioned act Obscura, as well. This narrative, mysterious mood is traded for yet another set of impressive runs of more traditional forms of music as the build progresses, and, while the skills these passages are explored by, guarantee a rewarding momentary experience, when combined with the musically more engaging feeling of the Obscura-like sci-fi thrill, are prone to deliver a final fabric that blames the traditional elements as finely calibrated fillers, in my opinion. Guys, let's talk about the rest of the tracks, too.


Third installment, "Textures", is a cover of the original piece of the same title from progressive band "Cynic", and, since I must admit I do not currently know the source material, all I can say is that I find this cover to be a more successful -, more richly sounding dataflow to flatter the buff quasi-unplugged setting you have the chance in track 3, as well. This super-eventful delivery, though has distorted twin guitars to offer legit, liquified riff -work with great enthusiasm, also sports a sanely controlled global sound that does not seek to intimidate the ears, and remains a gentle composition at heart, instead. Gently, BUT very richly sounding, that is. I think it is safe to say that the Cynic cover is a superb moment of the LP, and I have the hunch that it ends abruptly enough to express dissatisfaction for. So do that if you want.

Fourth track, called "Earth Pus - Salvation" is a much more focused acoustic build, focused on content that is quite rare to behold, that is. The territory this music is coming from is not one you can fake access to if you have none, and it also is a close border-territory to the thrilling sci-fi vibe so eagerly cultivated by recent technical death acts. It sure as cartoon-hell much better, in my opinion, than the arpeggiated fantasy-bard direction.

Titular track, Transcendence is a 15 minutes epic with an initial tendency to flatter the Turkish cutpurse-chaser vibe with varied intensity, and, though this vibe is not one that I would fight with a raksasha for, I must admit it looks interesting when Gorod jackhammers the living music out of it. When this happens, and the flow arrives to the 5th minute mark, the build already is totally free of the need to relate to any mood, and it sounds much more gracefully consumable. At 6:42, you are in heavy fucking duty death metal with truly top level efficiency, and the sonic richness-, AND the integrity of the fabric herein demands unalloyed praise. The music is relentless and raging for a good amount of time herein, and it stays super-focused while declaring its urge of wanting to devour all, leaving you no other chance than to believe and be devoured, indeed. A devoured listener is a shitty one, too, so Gorod spits you out and resurrects you into totally acceptable form, and takes on a more restrained-, but absolutely rewarding mid-tempo stroll that never loses focus from the intricate melody, be it any shape or form or direction to flatter it along. At 11:59, Gorod sounds like it is creating a hilarious parody of metalcore, as the riffcraft shows the anatomy of that particular trend-genre, but supports it with such sexy and relentless rhythmyzation that badly abused metalcore as Thesis finds a new, magnificent will to live and shine by.

Rating : 9.6 / 10

If you want, check out my music

and / or

Buy me beer. Read more!