Talk about brutal/technical/grind frenzy, this album is all over the place. However, it does mesh together in unison. The rhythm guitars are hard to follow because of their complexity, something that takes a few listens to before they kind of sink in to your brain. A lot of tremolo picking going on here with chords and single strings, everything mixed well though, which is good because to have a bad mix to an album like this would do it a great injustice from all aspects. I would tend to go with this as Cryptopsy's finest work. You may disagree, but every album a band puts out is subject to speculation and criticism. As long as it's constructive, it's good.

8 tracks of just sheer brutality. Again, it's hard to follow the riffs because they're always changing. The vocals are a combination of deep throat/somewhat screaming, but not to an extreme. Mostly deep throat. Lord Worm was replaced on this one, but still the vocals go well with the music. They're not drowned out in any sort of aspect. The leads on songs are technical and some even go into part of the vocals if you can imagine that! But really, both guitarists show true talent and the originality on this album is what makes it so likeable. Nothing that I've heard in the past or present that is like this, only for a couple of albums, maybe some Suffocation.

To not like this means that you have a despicable attitude towards extreme music. There aren't a whole heck of a lot of blast beats, just a lot of tempo changes, mainly fast guitar, but when the double bass drums and blasting are going on, you can still hear the music. Never been a fan of the lyrical concepts, but they do fit with the music quite well. I'd say the horror, death, gore, etc. suits an album or band like this. I don't think that anything they put out can equate to this. There is just so much energy and originality going on here. I think that this does justice for the entire genre of extreme metal. I have not heard this album in years either!

If you're not able to obtain this one from any online source (which is doubtful), then YouTube has the collection of songs together for listening to. This picks up from the scraps of which other albums do disdain. Amazing that these guitars seem to fly all over the place, the leads again were well done, fast and furious. Both guitarists contributing on that front. So yeah, key into this one on YouTube to get a taste of severe divinity. It's worth it. Maybe extreme metal is not to your liking, but that doesn't make this effort something to damn. Nothing is ruined by anything here. Not the vocals, production or musical quality. Check it out!

Rating: 8½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
08/09/2014 21:42