Psycroptic : "The Pulse of Annihilation"

 

These Tasmanian devils play a blistering form of death metal that carries technical finesse as well as scowling fury. There is a rock n roll swagger to the more progressive side of what they do. It is my first time digging into these guys, so surprised that there is not a harsh blast of time signatures that flash before my eyes before i can form thoughts about them. 'Gathering a Venomous Herd" finds them picking up some speed, as the snarl of the vocals makes more of a declaration. There has not been a barrage of guitar solos, so that is impressive. It finds them going in an almsot more of a thrash direction. 

"A Sword of Me" features some tight, airtight picking.. The vocals are layered with perhaps a more death metal sound buried somewhre in the mix. The focus is on the form and function, rather than on hooks.. The harsher vocals are spit out with rapid-fire intent.  "No Time For the Week" tries to give things more space, but they are picking at such a hyper fast spped it is not attainable. To their credit, the drums are locked in almost as snuggly has what Meshuggah does. Just fewer time signature changes. The more melodic intro is needed to "Pillars Fall" as everything had begun to run together. They don't linger when the build comes and throw themselves back into the high-speed chugging. But the breather helped and reframed what they are doing. 

Until they speed off there is a bit of a hook in the main riff of "Annihilation Pulse". It is better than what the album descends to when they start doing palm-muted chugging on "No Blade of Grass," which becomes almost indistinguishable from what they do on "Embrace the Curse" that follows. This puts a great deal of pressure on the last song, "Forging the Crown," to do something different, but this is not really what happens. There is a guitar melody in the background, but the emphasis is on the racing riff. The most interesting parts feel more like thrash than death metal. For my tastes, this is too busy and not dark enough, but if yo uare into more technical metal but want it to not jerk you around with time signature changes, then you might already be a fan of this band. If not, give them a shot. I will give this album an 8; it's being released on Metal Blade. 

 

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