While Tommy is the sole original member of this band, Trevor has been around since ''Crust" so he basically counts. While these guys are a band whose talents I have always appreciated, I can't say they are one of my favorite death metal bands of all time, though I am impressed by what is unfolding on their tenth album. There are still plenty of jazz-fusion undertones to the songwriting that find the band continuing to excel at a style they had mastered back in the '90s. They also have some pretty hooky metal riffs, rather than just throwing a bunch of math at you like the so-called technical death metal bands of today are prone to do.
They do more acrobatics on "No Feast For Flies". This does include some melodic passages along with jazzy nuances. They pour on more rapid double bass for "Kill Devour Dissect" before an odd Middle Eastern breakdown sends them off into guitar solos. You can tell they came from the 90s as the snarled vocals have an actual purpose, rather than just being an obligatory layer of growling like many of today's death metal bands. "the Sun God" has more groove as it oscillates between passages of melodic less overdriven guitar, that has more in common with Joe Satriani. The slinky fretless bass lines add to the grooves unfolding here.
"Dume-kike" is closer to what you expect from your typical death metal band until it enters a weird atmosphere section. "One Shot Closer" finds a tug of war between their faster more aggressive playing and the melodic tendencies contributed by the stellar guitar playing. The vocals drop into a lower growl for the speedy groove of "The Brain is the Best Past". It has some twists and turns as expected from these guys."Nove Strad" feels like a faster, less grooving version of the previous song when it kicks off. The guitar melody that becomes a solo breaks this up, which is how solos are supposed to work, If Dream Theater wrote a song for a Tim Burton movie it might sound like this last song. Overall this is a great death metal album that blends what they are known for with some new grooves, I will give this album a 9, and see how it grows on me.
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