Bridge Burner : "Disempath"

 

There are some bands that blend genres into something that can only be called heavy as fuck. This band from New Zealand does just that.  Many bands wield a sadistic sound bent on battering your ear drums but forget to write songs worth listening to.  I feel Converge led many a hard-core kid in the late 90s to digging up albums from At the Gates and Entombed that helped spurn this sort of infusion. These guys are not a Converge clone, in fact they are more metal, they also come up with catchy riffs on their own. "Flaying Gods Children" is not only a great song title, but the riffs are infused with haunting chords to give some melody to things. I am pretty sure this is a death metal whose lead growler listened for more hard core growing up than Morbid Angel. 

 They come at you with hyper aggression rather than trampling you with their double bass. The production is in your face and cavernous. They are angry no evil. There was a touch of black metal influence on the first song, but it mainly flows between death metal and hardcore here. They keep to the hard-core side of song writing as these are quick drive bys and now sprawling epics. Once we get to "Bodies as Graveyards we are beginning to find a more uniform energy and feel to the songs, as it is not much different from the previous song until we get into the punchy chugged section midway into the song. It is a very effective dynamic.. " Nausea..." is another song that clearly defines itself and finds the band stepping up their songwriting without giving up any of the brutality.  

Sometimes hyper aggression works better than others. The feral explosion that is "Anodyne Existence" sounds like every other band that gets caught up in death metal temper tantrums. Based on what we are hearing here I am all for hard core influenced death metal.  I love the song "Dull Knives to Deaf Ears". Shit get's dark in the way I want it. It drops down to bass and drums before they kick shit in. The first half of the song is spastic fury that builds into a melancholy riff that is very sonic. I will give this album a 9.5 , it is the best death metal album so far.