I like the darker atmosphere that haunts this French band's brand of grindcore. By grind-core, there is a surprising blend of technical death metal in their songwriting DNA. This keeps things spastic and unpredictable. Songs like "Morgue" prove they can make you bob your head to their blend of madness. Some songs were just pure death metal with the grindcore taking a back seat in the meat wagon for the roaring vocals and double bass to be more dominant with a more Morbid Angel-like intention to the beating they are dishing out. There is no question the drummer is an insane machine of a man, but when it comes to making this kind of music he would have to be.
One of the more brutal albums I have heard from Season of Mist in recent months. They bring hook to their grindcore side to offset some of the craziness on "Nothing Left to Fear". It is damn catchy for music this fucking heavy. That is what songwriting is about. Perhaps it seems like I harp on songwriting at the expense of heaviness, but this album is once again proving you can have both. This album is very well produced putting them more closely shoulder to shoulder with a band like Cattle Decapitation, than the more punk-leaning side of the genre. The vocals are very deliberate and not just obligatory screaming.
I can hear a slight tinge of Carcass to "Metastasis". The unison chant in the chorus works well, but it is not as hooky as what they have already done here. They are also really capable of ripping mean guitar solos even without the help of their homeboy from Archspire, if you like that kind of thing. "Reason For Treason" is gritty enough and still cares about being a song worth listening to. They even cram a ton of riffs into just over three minutes. They find themselves making hard-core punches on "Fame of the Grotesque" as they mock influencers. At first 'Scapegoat" feels like it is going to be more straightforward, but they provides a smart enough twist to things.
"Flesh Against Flesh' is another example of hardcore's influence on the band. Though they throw more dazzling meth'ed-out guitar shredding at you than the hardcore bands would. "Mother Earth, Mother Whore", brings the album to a close on a darker note, though they do throw restraint out the window halfway in and blast off into a tooth-gnashing thrashing. I will give this album a 9.5, it's setting the bar for what extreme metal should be when it comes to songwriting this year. Season of Mist is dropping it in April.
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