Brain Drill (United States of America (Ben Lomond/Santa Cruz, California) )

Brain Drill - Quantum Catastrophe [2010] (Technical Death Metal/Grindcore)
Lable : Metal Blade Records

Technical death metal is one of the most polarizing genres among metalheads. Some will argue for hours that Necrophagist are some of the most talented musicians ever to walk the earth while others will say that Decrepit Birth noodle on forever without any kind of musical direction. Both of these arguments have credence. However, I haven’t seen a single band give critics so many dichotomous opinions of the same thing as much as Brain Drill have.

In order to really enjoy this album, you have to put yourself in a certain frame of mind. Hold brutal technical death metal bands up to the standard of other brutal technical death metal bands, not up to your favorite masters of gloom and doom. Firstly, you have to recognize that part of the point of this music is confusion. You’re not really supposed to be able to soak in every note you hear. Quantum Catastrophe drills your brain (pun intended) with so many angular, blistering melodies that I don’t think even the band can fully comprehend their own music. That’s why this album gets a 4 out of 5 and not a 2 out of 10.

What you’ll find here is very simple: turbo-speed guitar soloing, brutal blast-beats, and ferocious growls. The bass, unfortunately, falls very deep into the cavernous mix, only to be heard by the most attentive listeners. This is fairly sad due to the fact that bassist Ivan Munguia demonstrates his virtuosity with quite possibly the fastest bass intro ever on “Obliteration Untold.” It only lasts about two seconds, but it still doesn’t fail to boggle my mind. More solos from him would be a quite welcome addition. However, everything else for the most part works as it should.

Though they do manage to be as brutal as possible (exactly what is needed from this type of band) I find it very hard to listen to this for a long time. Getting through the whole album for one full spin was tough enough. I would have liked to have heard some variation, like Death did with “Voice of the Soul.” It really helps to keep the album on its feet and not allow the formula to get too, well, formulaic (it doesn’t help that the closing track has 11 minutes of constant death metal). However, in short bursts, Brain Drill are pretty damn good. If you are able to handle over-the-top technicality and unrelenting brutality, then I think it’s pretty likely you’ll agree with me.


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Cephalic Carnage (United States of America (Edgewater, Colorado) )

Cephalic Carnage - Misled by Certainty [2010] (Technical Grind/Death Metal)
Lable : Relapse Records

While becoming acquainted with grindcore via a local band, Aborted Jesus Milkshake, I was apprehensive about approaching this abrasive and strange sub-genre. After hearing good things about Cephalic Carnage, I decided to give them a listen. And strangely, I began with their latest offering that has just recently come out, "Misled by Certainty".

This was a surprise to me as I expected this to be pure abrasiveness and noise, but Cephalic Carnage mix it up with some technical elements to render what they call "hydrogrind". However I found the drug references minimal on here, although theres no doubt that these guys came up with some lyrics via the bong n blunt.

With its southern-ish sounding guitars this album is truly unique in the grindcore genre and I doubt theres any band doing what Cephalic Carnage are. Its technical, with sporadic time changes and random solos. Its pure strangeness, but yet I like it a lot.

If there was a band to convert me to their unique brand of grindcore it would be Cephalic Carnage, they favour technicality over just pure noise and yet still come out as aggressive and dark. If Napalm Death and Sleep collided this would no doubt be a similar result in Cephalic Carnage and their overall sound.

I was impressed by this release and it has influenced me to look at their other releases and see if they're half as good as "Misled by Certainty". This is a great later addition to 2010, and it reeks with creativity, aggression and technicality. I thoroughly enjoyed this album. I think it is a contender for grindcore classic, if not album of the year.

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Arkaik (United States of America (Riverside County, California) )

Arkaik - Reflections Within Dissonance [2010] (Technical Death Metal )
Lable : Unique Leader

Another California technical death metal band? Great. There's a new one every day. Arkaik are pretty much every band that you've heard before, but they execute what has become cliché very well. Reflections Within Dissonance has a bit more aggression than the most recent efforts by Arkaik's peers and is ultimately more interesting because of it.

One way to describe Reflections Within Dissonance is to look at the album art and list what you see. A myriad of colors, skulls, dead trees, and other phenomena all thrown together in some sort of bizarre collage of destructive sonic force. The album starts with the title track and moves into “Paradigm,” blasting the listener with wave after wave of violent sound. “Womb Of Perception” begins with a hyperfast riff and has a nice bassline set to it. After the eerie vocals (or is that a sample?) at the end of “The Divine Manifestation,” it breaks into a roaring vocal section that starts the second half of the album. Despite some of the earlier songs running together, I found myself actually headbanging to the latter half of the album. Tracks like “Malignant Ignorance” which begins with a bunch of fills and the bass intro on “Elegy Of The Disillusioned” are a bit more fun than their sheer speed counterparts on the first half of the album.

The album concludes with a slower track that obviously must speed up halfway through (after all this is Californian tech death). There's an interesting bit halfway through where the song is reduced to mere drum and vocals with some intermittent chugging going on. Reflections Within Dissonance, unlike it's peers, doesn't rely on the neo-classical solos when it comes to songwriting, which I feel is one of Arkaik's strongest points. After the hundredth hammer-on and sweep picking blast-a-thon I tend to get tired of such ventures. Although it blends together at times and sounds like just about every other technical death metal album from California, the way Reflections Within Dissonance is executed with such aggression really makes its appeal much more lasting.

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Planet X (United States of America (California) )

Planet X - Quantum [2007] (Instrumental Progressive Metal, Shred, fusion)
Lable : Inside Out

I give credit to Sherinian, he has thought up some interesting bits, and managed to shore himself quite a career working with several key musicians (Alice Cooper, Dream Theater, Malmsteen, etc...). But as good a doppelganger Sherinian is, he is quite terrible at producing consistent material.

Quantum, Planet X's latest in a series of efforts to one-up Dream Theater, is a noticable step down from their MacAlpine-era stuff, as the heavy-footed neoclassical shredder's darkened influence is missing from this. As a general rule, these songs will impress you upon first listen due to their technicality. The thing is, upon more and more listens, with the exception of perhaps Space Foam, there's no lasting impression created in your psyche. While extensive use of odd time signatures is in play, they aren't used very well, almost as if Sherinian just wanted to put them in there to show that his band can play in 12321321/512421321. Whatever the reason, the music comes off as disjointed and fragmented. You can listen to this a thousand times and still not remember a good part of the album.

Again, like the band Sherinian was trying to one up with Planet X, I am not doubting the talent of the involved musicians. Quite the opposite, I am doubting the ability of Sherinian to use all this talent appropriately and tastefully. Several songs make extensive use of such modern prog-metal cliche's such as making 1/2 step chord progressions along 2-2-3 or 2-2-3-3 or 3-3-3-4 times (7/8, 10/8, and 13/16 respectively) as well as decaying into what sounds like elevator music on mescaline. Sure, it's interesting at first, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a real lack of metal-inspired aggression here, as well as something that is central to progressive music -- progression. Each song is little more than a foil for the solos, and as a result the songs meander, have a solo break, meander more, have another solo break, then close the song with no real conclusion, no real progression of ideas, just a foil for wankery.

Remember kids, just because you can play a lot of notes in a row in an odd configuration doesn't necessarily mean there will be people around who enjoy hearing a lot of notes played in a row in an odd configuration. Talent, skill, and technicality are tools to create music, not the music itself. I can't recommend anybody to buy this, because it's simply not entertaining enough to even warrant the cheap price that you could get from Itunes or Rhapsody. I'd just recommend to torrent this for the song Space Foam, and so you could skim the rest of the songs. However, you'd be much better off getting Live From Oz or Moonbabies. Those have something Quantum thoroughly lacks, and that is dynamics, variation, and actual songs, instead of wankfests.

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Behold... the Arctopus (United States of America (New York City, New York) )

Behold... the Arctopus - Skullgrid [2007] (Technical Instrumental  Progressive Metal)
Lable : Black Market Activities/Metal Blade

I can barely comprehend how good this album is. Although it may be filled with technical wankery at times, that's part of what makes it truly great. I can't think of another band that can play with this degree of technicality and actually keep one interested throughout an entire album. I had bought Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning, their previous EP, and liked it so much that I decided to pre-order this most recent release. Upon hearing it, I was intensely glad that I did.

The album begins with a minute of apparently random notes with seemingly little structure, but that's okay because the next track is pure gold. "Canada" might possibly be my favorite track on the album, as it has great drumming and a nice solo, with the signature Behold... the Arctopus interlude somewhere in the middle. You've got to hand it to these guys, as they actually write out all their music. While it may sound like noodling, their music is meticulously crafted and I think that comes through if one listens enough.

Another highlight is Mick Barr's guest solo on "You Are Number Six" (even thought it is quite a dense track). Additionally, "Scepters" includes great warr guitar playing, courtesy of Colin Marston, and a well-written solo. "Transient Exuberance" also deserves a mention here because of its amazing drumming and overall completeness, even though it does take a while to develop.

This album is a great buy for fans of this genre. However, BTA may not be a band that everyone will enjoy, mainly because their songs do not contain any sort of a normal structure. I'd say the only thing that could top this would be their previous effort, Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning, so I encourage you to pick that up as well. Support these guys, they need it!

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