Annotations of an Autopsy - II: The Reign of Darkness [2010] (Death Metal)
Lable : Nuclear Blast/Siege of Amida
I had to choose a rating of around 80, anything higher and I would've felt like a liar but anything in the 70s looked too low...
Lets be honest, a lot of metalheads dislike AOAA. And not without good reason, their Sludge City EP was pretty retarded and Before the Throne of Infection (despite a few good songs like Human Dust and Prosthetic Erection) wasn't much better - it was groovy and they're great fun live but it was hard to get past the irritating vocals and general... stupidity of it. This release is far more mature and, well, metal than their previous work, relying less on breakdowns and 'br00tal' vocals than actual riffs and proper vocals. Not to say they've completely gotten rid of the breakdowns, but they're used far more tastefully here (and if I'm honest, I do like them as a guilty pleasure). It's also far more crushingly heavy than any of their other work.
The vocals have improved huuuugely, just listen to the start of In Snakes I Bathe to see how far he has come since the 'breebree horrhorrhorr' of his previous works! Steve actually now does proper death metal vocals instead of his constant bree-ing, and he's pretty good at it if I'm honest! They're deep and meaty and throaty and its surprisingly easy to work out what he's saying (although it's pretty easy to work that out in songs like Born Dead...). He even breaks out more screeched, black metal-style vocals in songs such as Portrait Of Souls, and although it isn't used much it still adds a bit of variety. The old gang chants are back (another guilty pleasure of mine, I loved the 'These corpses, are mine!' chant in Keeper of the Plaguelands on Before the Throne...) but again are used tastefully, only being used in the otherwise forgettable Bone Crown. Im no expert on musical technique or instruments so I cant tell you if the drumming has improved or if the guitar work is more technical as I have literally no idea, but I can say that the guitars are now playing far more memorable parts (listen to Cryogenica from 2:20 onwards, is that not very groovy and almost like some Rock n Roll song?) and the production makes all the individual pieces work together to create a deep, bassy feel which feels like a thick, sludgy, suffocating cloud. It's quite a claustrophobic album actually, something which is helped by the occasional samples (especially the intro track, listen to that with good headphones...)
The song titles and lyrics have also improved on this release, as they have moved away from the puerile gore of Fisted to the Point of Regurgitation and Prosthetic Erection (a great song title if I'm honest) and now seem to be focusing more on the end of humanity and the reign of darkness (oh wait that's the name of the title, pretty self-explanatory really). So yeah, they've stopped with their kinda silly attempts at gory songs.
Something which is quite noticeable in this album is that each song, despite any huge lack of variety, is quite different. This immediately makes this superior to many other deathcore releases (although I'm not sure if this still qualifies so much as deathcore... ok it does a bit but it's very close to death metal) which all seem to blend together and have 10 songs which sound EXACTLY the same. This album can start to blend together a bit (especially the second half) but there are little things that make individual songs different, such as the beginning and solos of Catastrophic Hybridization, or the slower, thundering grooves of Impale the Sun. This is a far better crafted album than their previous works, and it's obvious that a lot more work and effort went into creating each song than in their other releases.
I am very impressed with this album, and feel that AOAA have advanced greatly. They are no longer amongst the ranks of the pig squealing deathcore runts: they are leaders of the scene and have wisely advanced their sound rather than remaining on the doomed deathcore bandwagon (seriously, how much longer can it last before it becomes COMPLETELY worthless). I hope that they continue to advance and that I get to see them live again sometime soon, as these tunes are pretty immense live: really get the moshing and headbanging going!
If you dont like deathcore, then you might not like this but you should give it a try to see how a once maligned deathcore act has now advanced (it may just give you faith again in the modern metal scene). If you don't like AOAA then check this out, as you may be pleasantly surprised!
Download Now !
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar