This had to happen, a review of a self titled release. When I started this blog I knew this was coming but not in my wildest dream that I thought it would be an Australian technical death metal album. Self titled releases are like losing virginity, it happens only once in a lifetime and likewise a self titled release happens once in a band's career (unless the band's name is Killswitch Engage). The are couple of reasons why a band decides to name their album after themselves. In some cases it is their debut, they need instant publicity and they don't want fans to have an iota of doubt on who the creates of the masterpiece are (Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Van Halen). A self titled release may suggest a significant change to the band's sound, a reinvention of their image which may lead to commercial success (Metallica) or public outcry (Suicide Silence) and in some cases it is just pure laziness to think about a name that would appear on the cover (Avenged Sevenfold). Then there are bands, veterans in their craft who wants to remind all of you who they are late into their career and Psycroptic by Psycroptic is one of those cases.
Who are they? Six months back I would have shown a blank face to that question but my quest for all things heavy and brutal eventually led me to these Australians, 'led me' won't be too honest lets just say 'found them on the way'. They are a technical death metal band formed by brothers Joe Haley and Dave Haley playing guitars and drums respectively and their current lineup gets completed by Jason Peppait on vocals and Todd Stern handling bass.
The band has only one guitarist which is a rarity in the sub-genre and like other single guitar technical bands like Decapitated and Dying Fetus the band has the almighty riff as the focal point. What this means to you dear reader is that the band avoids neoclassical sweep picking scale exercises, pretentious symphonic arrangements and fretless bass shredding. Psycroptic was always a guitar centric band and this album is no different, each of its nine songs are adorned with technical and intricate riffs and each of those are unmistakably Psycroptic.
Joe Haley's riffs are long, winding and diverse, Sentence of Immortality and Endless Wandering features melodic tremolo picking riffs while the opening of Setting the Skies Ablaze hark back to the glory days of trash metal. Then there are serpentine Opethian riffs in songs like Cold and Ideals That Wont Surrender and like the Swedish maestros Joe layers the riff with acoustic guitars playing the same pattern, you can hear the sound of his fingers moving up and down the fretboard. The opening minute of Cold is pure Ghost Reveries era Opeth, that main riff after the acoustic intro is one of the greatest in the genre, its both melodic and technical at the same time. These little intricacies give the album an organic earthy feel something that is abstained in the sub-genre they are classified under. The brothers after playing for years together knows what they are going for and their chemistry has led to some of the best guitar drums interplay death metal has ever seen. Dave Haley knows the exact drum pattern to complement his brother's riffs even the fills follow the guitar notes.
For all the instrumental dexterity and songwriting excellence it's the vocals that one associate in characterizing a band's sound. Jason Peppait replaced probably the most versatile death metal singer of all time. Matthew Chalk can traverse death grunts, shrieks and gurgles in a single verse and he had the chops to match Joe Haley's riffs. The second Psycroptic album The Specter of the Ancients was roughly a battle between Joe Haley's riffs and Chalk's vocals.
Jason sounds nothing like a death metal vocalist and I love his vocals for that very reason. His vocals in this record is a cross between Mark Osegueda of Death Angel and Tom Araya of Slayer. You can almost hear Tom Araya screaming 'God hates us all' in the song The World Discarded and he almost go whisper talking in the opening verse of Sentence of Immortality like the song Vacuity by Gojira. His lyrics are thoughtful with socio-political undertones dealing with topics that are very much relatable which is refreshing considering the usual suspects of technical death metal are aliens, space travel and artificial intelligence. He even pens poetry in the opening verse of Ideals That Won't Surrender
Who are they? Six months back I would have shown a blank face to that question but my quest for all things heavy and brutal eventually led me to these Australians, 'led me' won't be too honest lets just say 'found them on the way'. They are a technical death metal band formed by brothers Joe Haley and Dave Haley playing guitars and drums respectively and their current lineup gets completed by Jason Peppait on vocals and Todd Stern handling bass.
The band has only one guitarist which is a rarity in the sub-genre and like other single guitar technical bands like Decapitated and Dying Fetus the band has the almighty riff as the focal point. What this means to you dear reader is that the band avoids neoclassical sweep picking scale exercises, pretentious symphonic arrangements and fretless bass shredding. Psycroptic was always a guitar centric band and this album is no different, each of its nine songs are adorned with technical and intricate riffs and each of those are unmistakably Psycroptic.
Joe Haley's riffs are long, winding and diverse, Sentence of Immortality and Endless Wandering features melodic tremolo picking riffs while the opening of Setting the Skies Ablaze hark back to the glory days of trash metal. Then there are serpentine Opethian riffs in songs like Cold and Ideals That Wont Surrender and like the Swedish maestros Joe layers the riff with acoustic guitars playing the same pattern, you can hear the sound of his fingers moving up and down the fretboard. The opening minute of Cold is pure Ghost Reveries era Opeth, that main riff after the acoustic intro is one of the greatest in the genre, its both melodic and technical at the same time. These little intricacies give the album an organic earthy feel something that is abstained in the sub-genre they are classified under. The brothers after playing for years together knows what they are going for and their chemistry has led to some of the best guitar drums interplay death metal has ever seen. Dave Haley knows the exact drum pattern to complement his brother's riffs even the fills follow the guitar notes.
For all the instrumental dexterity and songwriting excellence it's the vocals that one associate in characterizing a band's sound. Jason Peppait replaced probably the most versatile death metal singer of all time. Matthew Chalk can traverse death grunts, shrieks and gurgles in a single verse and he had the chops to match Joe Haley's riffs. The second Psycroptic album The Specter of the Ancients was roughly a battle between Joe Haley's riffs and Chalk's vocals.
Jason sounds nothing like a death metal vocalist and I love his vocals for that very reason. His vocals in this record is a cross between Mark Osegueda of Death Angel and Tom Araya of Slayer. You can almost hear Tom Araya screaming 'God hates us all' in the song The World Discarded and he almost go whisper talking in the opening verse of Sentence of Immortality like the song Vacuity by Gojira. His lyrics are thoughtful with socio-political undertones dealing with topics that are very much relatable which is refreshing considering the usual suspects of technical death metal are aliens, space travel and artificial intelligence. He even pens poetry in the opening verse of Ideals That Won't Surrender
"In this forest of dreams a light passes through
a brooding cold wind blowing through the trees
of these ravenous ravines, the fog so thick"
Joe Haley
Psycroptic may not be the best modern technical death metal band around and this record is definitely not their best but I love their approach towards the genre. In a genre marked by showmanship and pompous song arrangements, here is band that plays striped down death metal with enough instrumental flair to challenge the best of their competitors.
This album also is a winner on a production stand point, the guitar tone sound beafy and organic with the perfect level of distortion and the drums sound natural, the album sounds a lot like Gojira's 2012 release L'Enfant Sauvage and that itself sets them apart from the default sterile technical death metal production. Well I do have complaints, the bass guitar could have been more present in the mix and the artwork looks like it belongs to a Mastodon album, too much psychedelia.
This album also is a winner on a production stand point, the guitar tone sound beafy and organic with the perfect level of distortion and the drums sound natural, the album sounds a lot like Gojira's 2012 release L'Enfant Sauvage and that itself sets them apart from the default sterile technical death metal production. Well I do have complaints, the bass guitar could have been more present in the mix and the artwork looks like it belongs to a Mastodon album, too much psychedelia.
They have a new album coming up titled As the Kingdom Drowns on November 9th and it is one of my most anticipated metal releases this year along with albums by Beyond Creation, Behemoth and Bloodbath. Lets see where it ranks up in the inevitable Maiden Priest album of the year list.
LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT
Where to now
ReplyDeleteWe search for something always
Ease the pain
Of never ending dispute
Ideals of a force that won't surrender
Knee deep in this
Swamp lands is all that stands....
superb lines from the song "Ideals That Won't Surrender"
a great album with great meaningful songs, and a great blog written on this...
Awesome! the blog made you check out a song and that was all I wanted. I am happy that you took the effort.
DeleteOne of the most haunting and powerful words I've heard is the last lyric of the song Closure by Opeth from the album Damnation.
"In the rays of the sun I am longing for the darkness"
Thanks for reading and commenting :)