Crushing Sun - TAO

(06 Feb 2011)

I was reading an article yesterday about Death Metal, written by someone with no measurable knowledge of Death Metal. You had all the usual and predictable goofs as the style was being described, but then something hit me as downright rude and offensive to DMers everywhere: it was written that the lyrics of DM songs referenced blood, gore, murder, animal sacrifice, and are often dark and off-putting, going on to cite Obituary's “Infection” to prove it.

I really hate it when people try to make the genre sound one-dimensional. Obviously, there's an infinite amount of bands who will stick to “urr-hurr-hurr... Gore... Me like”, but then there's also a lot, and probably more, bands that will talk about much more interesting and unusual topics. And, judging by the cover, I was expecting Crushing Sun's TAO's lyrics to be of the latter variety, meaning that I was quite disappointed when I opened the booklet to find out that the broken-up English was used on such meaningful topics as “fucking”, “having sexual intercourse” and “having coitus”.

I wouldn't have cared so much if this album weren't so damn good in the musical department. Simplistic, groovy, yet very memorable Death Metal with a really restrictive and crushing atmosphere. It starts on a relatively high note with “Rain”, but then proceeds to be incredibly forgettable for two songs, and then proceeds to be genius for the next eight. The approach here is quite different in comparison to most DM bands in the way that instead of hitting everything straight at you without any sort of warning or anything, the result being like having a house made of Lego thrown at your face, these guys let the album progress, whilst inserting new details into each song, and the result is extremely effective.

Restraint, we've missed you.

Standout tracks:

Rain
Jane's Trail
12379 Seconds
Love
Grey Scent