Criterion - The Dominant

Rotten Tomatoes is rotten. It's slow and ad-ridden, it's colored after pus and infections, it has a database as tiny as the amount of fucks I give about how illegible my handwriting is, and its policy of basing scores on a number of “yays” and “nays” results in your total knowledge of the movie remaining the same. When I accidentally stumble into this horrid realm, I wonder what my life has come to. Not that it's all that bad, but when you're waiting weeks for a worthless page to load, it seems miserable. This waiting and disappointment have, though, the positive effect of giving way to introspection. You wonder about things, and you occasionally reach great conclusions. In this case, I wondered about the reason for this benign tumor, this negligible blood clot, to exist in the first place, and what I realized was this: it is a template. A template for programmers and web designers of exactly what they don't want their movie review website to become. A place to check on all the potential errors one might end up committing, reference on what to stray away from. This way, the only thing one needs to do to ensure the hypothetical website's success is to avoid making it resemble Rotten Tomatoes.

Now, let's return to one of the points mentioned earlier, the “yay” or “nay” system. The “x out of y (x <= y)” system is not much better. Even “yays and nays” can be interpreted as “x out of 1”. What happens is that even if the knowledge of how good the rated entity is becomes more exact depending on the value of y, the knowledge you gathered will still amount to only that, how good the rated entity is. You don't end up knowing how valuable it is as an existing fraction of the total knowledge and culture created up to that point in time, for instance. And there ought to be a rating for that, because it is not a direct correlation. So, for example, Rotten Tomatoes is horrible in terms of quality, but extremely important from a didactic perspective. As such, I think it was very brave of Criterion to make a Death Metal reinterpretation of Rotten Tomatoes.

No, really,  The Dominant makes Criterion sound like they're so aware of all the things that one is not supposed to do when making a good DM album that they just do every one of them out of boredom. They clearly strive for the “once great band trying to return to its glory days after a second reunion tour” sound. And despite this being a debut, this sound is so convincingly executed that you can almost see the band members crying themselves to sleep after screaming “It all made sense before!” at the top of their lungs for half an hour. Their work here is so generic that it has to have been done so intentionally. The album cover is lazy, the logo looks like it's been used so many times before that it's now completely devoid of meaning, what can be discerned from the lyrics is not worth discerning, and the song titles sound like band names (most probably because they are). As for the music, well, let me change the paragraph.

Have you ever heard an album where the production was absolutely bland and uninteresting, but simultaneously sounded somehow off? And have you ever heard an album where, encased in that frustrating dullness are riffs that have a spark of potential, muddled by said production? And have you ever heard an album where said riffs are encased, completely isolated from each other, in medleys that are supposed to pass for songs? I've explained that I believe this release to be comparable to Rotten Tomatoes: it's horrible, but worth the experience. Now, the last point I mentioned is exactly why I think this. The structures of the songs make me believe Criterion either have not listened to Death metal in a long time, or wrote The Dominant with the Wikipedia entry on Death Metal as their main influence. I get the feeling that Criterion don't really understand the concept of a song making sense. At all.

I actually compiled a list of the structures of all the songs, also stating my remarks in relation to said structures, but I really didn't need to do that to notice a pattern in the music here. Criterion seem to love making riffs pop out of nowhere. This technique can be used tastefully, obviously, but what they like to do afterwards is to forget how said riffs were originally meant to be tasteful surprises, and start working on the songs based on these one-time intrusions. They also like making these excellent ultra epic multi-section solos, and then plopping them wherever. There is one for almost every song, generally in the most awkward places. Meanwhile all the other usual structural elements are just scattered around aimlessly, and the listener is left to attempt to make sense of all that mess. The result is five unremarkable tracks and another four tracks competing for the title of “worst Death Metal song ever”.

”Blackened Memories” sounds like it's about to end for practically its entire runtime. “Last Breath” throws in a “climactic conclusion” solo before its first minute and overall sounds like someone accidentally spliced the two halves of the song the wrong way around. “Obliteration” stops making sense just as you realize that the solo is going for too damn long and you're only half way into the 3 minutes and 54 seconds indicated. Even the band eventually gave up on that track and decided to just slap a cheesy sample between the overlong middle and the ending and call it a day. Finally, “Demoniac Replacement” is just an intro, a normal chorus-verse-chorus after a devastating car crash, and the intro's younger sibling getting all solded together in some awkward incident and the three having to live with this predicament somehow.

All this happens while the guitars and drums do their best at repeating stuff that has been done umpteen times before. Occasionally, they'll mistakenly slip an interesting part here and there, and there's even a whole song that can be considered “good”. The vocalist is the best musician in this department. He's boring as hell. Period. He just drones on and off in the foreground. Nothing else. The album flows just like a random compilation of tracks, which are in turn a random compilation of riffs. No sense of order, no sense of progression. If it weren't for the sudden bouts of creativity in terms of riff writing, The Dominant would have been a perfect learning tool. “Wanna make a good Death Metal album? Now it's easy. All you have to do is not sound like us.”, Criterion could say. Still, this release is a fantastic achievement, and I'm surprised it hasn't been made earlier. I recommend people listen to this and endure it, and really try to delve into all its mistakes. Not very enjoyable, but certainly worth your time.

Standout tracks:

The Slayer
Awaken
Suffocation

On another note, I became 18 recently, so I'm officially within the appropriate age for being pretentious. So please allow me to make use of this opportunity to write like a total asshat this once without repercussions.

Anaal Nathrakh - Hell Is Empty, and All the Devils Are Here

I think that, in my lifetime so far, I've heard “Party Rock Anthem” way more than the zero times I intended to. When LMFAO comes on, I want to insert a Q-Tip deep enough into another person's ear to telekinetically perforate my own tympanic membranes. Still, my stupidity and hate for their music aren't enough for me to denounce them as terrible musicians. They are not. When music follows predictable patterns, it sends positive stimuli to the brain. So simplistic, dumb music is easier to enjoy on a biological level, which is in turn an easier alternative to thinking about it. It's hard to distinguish the fun in standing motionless whilst rubbing your chin, and LMFAO are aware of that. They know what they're doing and they do it effectively.

This seemingly unrelated prologue is actually pretty fitting in the context of this review, because Anaal Nathrakh are pretty much the LMFAO of metal, as far as this album is concerned. It's a shame, really. I was feeling like talking about stuff like creative arrangements, songwriting, structure and whatnot, but none of those are worth mentioning here. This is a party metal album and every one of its components equates to that. Well, obviously the party itself would have to be kind of ridiculous and unusual for the analogy to make sense, but that's just a detail. Anyway, the sound on HIEaAtDAH is huge and filthy, in the sense that you can feel the mucus leaking out of the speakers when you play it. The music is as loud as the hype around this album and as simplistic as dignity would allow it to be. I almost forgot, in case you didn't know or didn't deduce by the liberal use of “A”s and “H”s in their name, Anaal Nathrakh is a black metal band. But, in accordance to the party paradigm, their music has been streamlined in order to follow the biological feedback principle mentioned earlier. This, in turn, means that their method of composition and riffing is slicker, neater, with a lot of grind influences for added energy.

I must also point out their inherent fixation for appropriately neat song structures. You have here hooks and yell-gibberish-along choruses by the dozen per track. The songs are so easy to follow that you'd need to be holding 58 conversations simultaneously to even show signs of zoning out. That is a good thing if you want to flex your social life to a soundtrack, but not so good if you want to listen to music. If you want to listen to Hell Is Empty... seriously, prepare to be distracted by how fascinating the floor is. In fact, the only thing that appears to differentiate the music here from the textbook definition of “generic” is the relentless playing around in the vocal department. It sounds like V.I.T.R.I.O.L. wouldn't come to the recording sessions, so they'd hide a microphone in his bathroom whenever he took a bath. Only occasionally are there indicators that the two band members even know each other. Most of the time you have a tube with vocal cords doing whatever tickles its fancy pasted on top of an average extreme pop metal act being mechanical and boring and shit.

You've probably deduced by now that I don't buy into all the murmur surrounding this album that compares it to some of the most evil sounding music ever created. Well, that's not exactly true either. Think of an ADD-ridden Rammstein, where the lineup is just the keyboardist cloned six times. That's how evil the album is for the most part. But, just like any party should, things become more interesting toward the second half. What we have here is the most awesome and most disappointingly short party to have ever existed. During “Solifugae”, all the people are entering the party. The second track serves as a way to warm the crowd up. There are songs down the middle that merely serve the two purposes of being fist pumpers and of including as many metal clichés as humanly possible. Tracks 7 to 9 see the party showing more and more hints of being kind of strange. “Sanction Extremis” is the party becoming too weird to handle and people starting to try to leave through the now bolted shut doors. And finally “Castigation and Betrayal”, as the name implies, would be someone having called the police in the previous song and the mentioned authoritative entity performing a pooping manoeuvre on the festivities. As such, Hell Is Empty... is that kind of album that will not contribute in any way to humanity. Don't listen to it because you think it will be captivating or enlightening. It isn't. But if you want a dose of mindless fun, be my guest.

Standout tracks:

The Final Absolution
Lama Sabachthani
Sanction Extremis (Kill Them All)

Ancient Necropsy - Sanctuary Beyond The Infinite...

You know what? I've been trying to find a way to start this review in my usual “desperately trying to be funny” style for two weeks now, and I haven't found a single way to do it that would make any sense. I honestly can't find anything to bring up and occupy two paragraphs with. There isn't all that much to make this album stand out. Other people don't appear to like it much, meanwhile I find it excellent. But then I set out to invent combinations of words that would prove Sanctuary Beyond The Infinite... to be worthwhile, and I can't. The truth is that what we have here is an okay release that for some reason is way beyond okay.

You know that first completely obscure band you found on Bandcamp, whose album you listened to once, thought “hey, these guys are really good” and then never listened to ever again? That's exactly what SBTI... resembles. Nondescript album cover, nondescript production and a few ellipses thrown into the track titles for further nondescriptiveness. I especially like the way the instrumental intro, and a good one at that, is called “The Absolute Truth About...”. It gives you a sense of connection between the first track and the second, like if they were the two movements of the musical composition entitled “The Absolute Truth About Limited Golden Keys To The Paradise”. My theories for what that means are that either “Absolute Truth About Ltd.” is a fictional company whose product is a gold plated bong in the shape of a key, or that the lyrics are a PSA about drugs.

Anyway, the most important element in this whole endeavor is the music. It is a concoction that bonds the fast pace and the linear/insane structures of the technical school of brutal death metal with strong sense of progression and riffing that exhibits very melodic tendencies. This sound is good. I like it very much. It is epic. But, to keep with the Bandcamp analogy, that is really all you get from second track to last. No contrasts, no interesting conflicting ideas, only very slight album progression. “The Epitaph Of The Phoenix Arising” lets out a hint at its intentions as a closer, what with having a rather different guitar and drum sound, not to mention a very “final song”-ish section in the middle, but it would have also been perfectly logical if the album were to continue afterwards.

This means that SBTI... relies almost entirely on the strength of the riffs, and that mostly depends on preference. I understand why one wouldn't like what Ivancient is doing regarding the guitar acrobatics on this album: it is kind of generic and pretty simplistic at times, and isn't always that effective. But I am really fond of the riffs, mainly because within the context they give the songs a sense of epicity that is not found in most music. That is also practically the only reason I like this album so much.

I have to remind at this point that we are discussing a sound that is almost guaranteed to fail. You need to have a strong sense of self control and musical maturity to pull it off. Add one detail too many and the whole thing comes crashing down. Don't add enough details, and you succumb into being just another stereotypical Bandcamp act. Just the achievement that is having created  9 songs + 1 of this kind that are neither boring nor terribly jarring justifies giving this one a spin. Let alone the fact that half of these songs are close to perfection, in my opinion. And opinion is really what will make or break this release for a listener. I personally adore it. If you give it a listen and hate it, I perfectly understand.

That is all I had to say. I don't know why I couldn't write it two weeks earlier.

Standout tracks:
Lost At The Eternal Space
Altar Of Fire
Revelations
Sanctuary Beyond The Infinite
Epitaph Of The Phoenix Arising

Ancient Necropsy - Apocalyptic Empire

Imagine that you have a child, and that this child has made a drawing. They hand you their work. You glance at it, mumble a “That's a very nice drawing of a squiggle, child” and doom it to the Fridge Door of Negligence. You choose the magnet with the perfect enormousness to weakness ratio, so as to increase the likelihood that the magnet will fall off, and to ensure that as much of the drawing as possible is not visible while it hasn't. But just as you're about to stick the printer paper onto the door, where it can be forgotten forever, you suddenly notice that the drawing is actually of an artistic quality comparable to the likes of Michelangelo or da Vinci. That's a plausible allegory for the first experience of listening to Apocalyptic Empire.

All the elements appear to indicate your stumbling upon a relentless onslaught of pedestrian brutal death metal that is here to bore you for approximately twice as long as a usual album of the genre. Before anything else, you are indifferently greeted by a cover that is as unimpressive as it's confusing as hell. I wonder where Ivancient, the sole member of this project, got the idea that a castle that is actually a disintegrating space rocket that is actually a volcano would make for good cover art. Then, you are prepared by an introduction that is more reminiscent of the 80s than the 80s themselves. When the actual music starts, you notice that the production makes everything sound either like processed farts or like processed cooking pots, or like a mixture of the two. The music is nothing special at first either. You have two thin guitars that usually play the same lead, backed by a tupperware drumset. And they spend the songs just skimming through sections with no obvious progression, meanwhile the dynamics are entirely up to the listener's imagination.

But as you dig deeper into the album's nature, some order begins to reveal itself. Something that is not too dissimilar from the notion of song structure becomes noticeable and the guitar exercises used instead of riffs morph into actual riffs. The style of riffing used kind of resembles a more BDM version of The Chasm, interspersed with a unique style of going up and down scales really fast, about one experimental moment per 5 minutes, and a few rare tinges of Lykathea Aflame. If songs were people, the structure of the average song from this album would be what you'd get if all humans mysteriously disappeared and aliens tried to reconstitute what a human looked like with only a toothbrush and a sock as reference.

With these elements, Ancient Necropsy has accomplished the feat of making a surprisingly great album. A very rickety balance between memorability and confusion is kept pretty consistently and the gargantuan length of the album actually works in its favor. The subtle contrast between the first half and the second results in a very rewarding experience as well. The first half mostly experiments with virtually unfollowable structures and aims at destroying rewind buttons. Meanwhile the second is far more straightforward and linear, focusing more on quality riffing. When I say subtle, though, I mean very subtle, like the difference between a bald person and a bald person after they got a haircut. The entire album is confusing and convoluted, and the experience is a 35 minute journey through Whatthehellisgoingonville that offers no chance to take a breath. If you want to make sense of the journey, I wish you luck. I took 6 months to kind of accomplish just that. It was totally worth it, though.

Standout tracks:

Malignant Matters Collapse
Ridiculous Preacher
Injured by Extrasensorial Communication
Undethronement of Inner Power
Old Man Decrepit Frozen
Master Of Knowledge

Iwrestledabearonce - It's All Happening

Am I behind the times? Do I live under a rock? No, scratch that. Do I live on a planet a light year away and just heard about these guys Iwrestledabearonce a few months ago, and it is actually 2010 as I write this? Seeing as I've already reviewed Aesthethica and Proliferation Of Disaster, I guess that no, it's 2011 all right. Yet here I am right now, reviewing Iwrestledabearonce's first album, with the intent of giving it a rating higher than -27 out of 5. Am I out of my mind? Do I not know the surefire reasons to hate them that you can revert back to once you're out of options? I do know, actually. They're trendy, PBR drinking, sweater-clad, huge-rimmed-glasses boasting, vintage camera collecting, vinyl supporting, hobo-like, ironic, pretentious, filthy hipsters, and therefore, logically, all that they ever might come up with is the most hateful and outrageous pap ever created. It's not like they even do the tiniest bit of effort to hide their identity. They even made a dubstep EP before dubstep was cool. So what is there, really, not to despise about this collective? Well for one thing, you have the music.

I don't mean that it is outstanding. Far from it. They aren't even all that imaginative, unless you consider playing more than one genre an astounding skill. I don't even mean that it is good. It's All Happening is riddled with problems and can get rather annoying. But it's not bad either. It's acceptable. What Iwrestledabearonce present us with is 10 songs. Each song appears to consist of bits and pieces off various unreleased Iwrestledabearonce songs, and these bits and pieces are connected together either by nothing, or, in some particularly rare cases, absolutely nothing. This means two things: First, that, as a whole, the songs' dynamics are as meditated upon and planned as a play where all the actors suffer from Tourette's; and second, you better get ready to hear lots of unnecessary sudden changes.

All in all, the album is kinda like the musical equivalent of a season of some second-rate sketch comedy. It might have its moments, it might even have some high points, but in the end you feel indifferent about it. A great example of this is the song “White Water in the Morning”. It goes perfectly well for the first two minutes, with masterful deathcore and a fantastic progression, but then the whole song, as well as my interest, is destroyed by a riff that comes out of nowhere and fails epically to change the direction the song was going in. The track limps around aimlessly for about a minute, and then settles for an unengaging riff to make an illogical fade out with. I don't think there was even a single song that I liked all the way through. There was always the out-of-place riff, lack of album flow, or even just downright boring material to partially ruin each of them.

I understand that Iwrestledabearonce are supposed to be a joke and all, I get that. But I still think that they should have worked on their strengths, rather than meticulously arranging the most random salad possible. Because they do have strengths. In fact, I believe they have all it takes to make music that is interesting. They have a knack for writing great, catchy melodies. Not to mention their proficiency in writing fantastic breakdowns, groovy and riddled with delicious subtleties. Besides, the members appear to be good behind their respective instruments.

The band only has itself to blame for all the hate it gets, though. Because if they were joking it means that they repeated the same joke 9 times too many. And if they weren't, then they simply disregarded the “songwriting” part of writing a song, named it their thing rather than a mistake, and got what they deserved.  Still, I try not to care about the meaning behind music. I try to give all the of importance to the actual music. And looking at It's All Happening that way, you have a nice, kind of fun album.

Standout tracks:

You Ain't No Family
Tastes Like Kevin Bacon
Eli Cash Vs. The Godless Savages
See You In Shell

Purulent Jacuzzi - Vanished In The Cosmic Futility

If potable water doesn't become a commodity in the future, free time will. In this age where the vicious cycle of debt and hopelessness that is getting a college degree is the most basic necessity for any job in existence, and retirement is but a quickly waning fad, the only thing that actually lies in the future for most of us is working as a means of survival. Forever. And ever. Until coronary and then “The End”. And, well, work is just getting more ruthless by the week. I haven't even left high school yet and I already find myself running from room to room, developing less time-consuming ways of gulping down food and concocting an all-week schedule that includes every detail from how much I sleep to exactly when I take a shit, all so that I can manage to savor some precious moments of relaxation, occasionally.

I really envy the people who decide to see a movie and then see it within the same week. I've given up on books and video games ages ago, and now I don't even have the time to listen to music anymore. I don't have the time to create music anymore. Fuck, I don't even have the time to sleep anymore! Succeeding is all about developing this balance between work and social life, meanwhile dying inside the whole time. And it amounts to fuck all. The only reason I allow myself to get all worked up here right now is because no one ever reads this shit anyway!

Alright, sorry about that. I guess that if you've read this far you do want an actual review. Well, my point with that wall of text was that, to me, albums such as Vanished In The Cosmic Futility are like a godsend. Why listen to Geogaddi, The Wall, or The Galilean Satellites for over an hour, when I can take in as much information from under 14 minutes of Purulent Jacuzzi's mindrape? And I mean this without a hint of sarcasm. This does rape the mind and I do love it.

What we have here is a very catchy, refined and natural-sounding mix of slam death metal with assorted grindcorisms, the occasional flourish of technicality, and a very original riffing style to boot. The musicians are excellently precise and very proficient, and the production joins it all together like no other. If those two sentences right now didn't convince you to give this a listen, I don't know what will. I guess I might try exploring a bit more detail.

The first thing that pops out when listening to Vanished In The Cosmic Futility is just how perfect the sound is. It's raw, screechy, punchy and gives you a rush. I have never before heard a BDM album with such a fitting sound. The vocalist also deserves a mention for doing right everything that the one from Waking the Cadaver did wrong, and to great effect. Everyone else is not far behind, providing instrumentation that is easy to follow despite its creativity. Structure-wise, there's not much of interest for the most part, but you get some very nice subtleties here and there. For the most part it's the grindcore style of linear “Riff1, then Riff2, then Riff3, then Riffx” endeavor, only with the “awesome per second” gauge too far up. And the riffs are something worth talking about. Every single one of them appears to have been crafted to perfection to create a style simultaneously very abstract and groovy. And then you get moments of guitar orgasms while the drums follow accordingly, and these moments are incredible.

The only actual problem I have with this album, a problem which is minuscule in comparison to the positive aspects, is the same that appears to plague every BDM album, and that is a cheesy intro and  uncompelling outro. Admittedly, without them the whole experience would have been under a quarter of an hour long, but I don't really mind. This is an album of unbridled intensity teaming up with creativity and attention to quality, and the two bookends are rendered rather insignificant by the constant magnificence of the rest. I'm not saying that Vanished In The Cosmic Futility has helped me find meaning in my life or spare time, but it is a perfect soundtrack for while I'm looking for it, and after.

Standout tracks:

Last Phase Of Leptospiriosis
Quadriplegia
Spastic Disphonia
Vortex Of The Inanity
Contagious Dementia
Rapture Of The Venous Vessels (New Version)
Pulsatory

Meatus - Inner Demons

Here's something I've come to notice: If I spend more time thinking of an album than listening to it, it'll usually mean that I like it way more than what's considered socially acceptable. For instance, I have this ritual of pulling out the Worlds Beyond the Veil CD and staring at it for a while, and then putting it back in with the rest of the CDs, all the while having a disturbingly happy expression. For the record, last time I listened to Worlds Beyond the Veil from first track to last was in June. The music within the release is so valuable to me that I avoid using it for its original intent, out of fear of having it ruined forever. Also, I prefer not listening to it because I don't like feeling disappointed. Yes, I am implying that it's about time I found a new favorite album ever.

Which brings us to Meatus's Inner Demons twofold. First, because this is not going to be my new all time favorite album, and second, because of how I know that. Without even getting into the musical aspect of the album yet, I'll mention the thing about knowing if I really love an album again. Like I said, if I spend more time thinking about an album than hearing it, it's usually because I adore it. And I stress the word “usually”, because there is one exception, and that being when an album is absolutely terrible. Inner Demons fits into this second category like a glove: ever since I first listened to it, I have thought about it daily, and then proceeded to have variable amounts of success at suppressing a need to burst out laughing. In fact, it fits so well into this latter category that it just so happens to be the new worst album I've ever listened to. Needless to say, I'm practically jumping with joy.

You see, being outrageously terrible is more challenging than being pretty-bad-to-okayish. You need to have some sort of idea of the rules to follow to make an acceptable release, and then you need to have the guts to consciously disregard them. I'm not saying that Anal Cunt are more talented than Nouvelle Vague, but, then again, I totally am. And Meatus know they're mildly talented. They know it so well that they use every opportunity they can to show off their uncanny ability of playing more than one genre. In the mean time, they only sacrifice a few unimportant things, such as sense of progression, dynamics, and being listenable. The result of this attempt at ultra-originality is a mix of some of the least interesting riffs in the history of death metal with a wad of the worst characteristics of every genre to have emerged in the last 40 years or so, all carefully arranged together by a tornado.

To give you a quick example, I'll describe the intro on the first track, which goes by the name of “Slave – Do It, End It All Now”. Oh, and have I mentioned the names of the songs here? They range from things like “Yeast – Societies Outcast”, to “G.H.B. - Sex Drugs Rock-n-Roll-n-Humility”, to the particularly clever “Spoken – ConfusionCONFUSIONnoisufnoc???”, but I digress. The opening song starts with (*gasp*) a piano sample playing (*GASP*) an arpeggio. Then, after a few repetitions, (*massive heart attack*) a clean guitar begins following the piano very badly while there's a sample of an e-mail about taking care of kids and hating the guts out of another person speaking on top. Randomly, the guitarist hits the distortion and begins to make some guitary noises. This whole sequence prolongs for the whole length of the e-mail about going to scouts with your son, giving guitar lessons, dance , and checking the daughter's FUCKING homework, before the whole thing settles down, leaving only the piano to play a few melancholic notes before being cut out mid-phrase, as a way to introduce the listener to the mega-dramatic death-metally / boring-beyond-comprehension introductory riff. And that's when the album begins to show off its extreme intensity and skull-crushing power by segueing into a post rock interlude for no apparent reason other than taking up space. Just as you start noticing how good Meatus are with post rock, the song cuts to a hip hop sample of someone saying “You don't like how I'm living, well, fuck you”, and we're back at the very uninteresting death metal. It takes one more introductory riff to actually get to the main theme, and all this amounts to an intro that in total takes up 3:30 minutes of the 7:56 minute song, and is completely unfulfilled.

All in all, the detours that are taken along the way eventually begin to sound like the band is making fun of you, and you wish they would stop doing them. But when the detours are not taken, the band has more of a chance to let shine through their complete inability to make a consistently engaging riff progression. A good example of this is “Ribo – Drugs Can't Erase The Memories”, which starts out relatively tolerable, until you realize that every single riff is a random combination of power chords an 11-year old could come up with by having a coughing fit, and that the order at which they're presented only makes them more torturous. The song is rendered even more terrible by the fact that every song prior and after that one is pretty much the same in that aspect. I think the fault here is of the guitars. They're so uninspired that they drag everyone else down to their level. The vocalist is quite skillful, the bass sometimes makes some cool chops and the drummer should have been looking for a better band in the first place, but the guitars are just lame! I think there are only about three worthwhile guitar parts in the whole album, and one of them sounds like the Batman theme.

I guess these guys were trying to out-weird and out-experimental everything else in existence and decided to do so in the cheapest, easiest and most gimmicky way possible. And I have to say that, in their own way, they have succeeded. Inner Demons IS absolutely bizarre. Its production is some of the most subtly perplexing I've heard yet, and the premise itself is a recipe for something of at least mild interest, meanwhile in execution it's even more tedious than James LaBrie's Elements of Persuasion. It really makes you stop and think, the way that something so chock-full of surprises and unexplained twists can sum up to something more boring than silence itself. How does that even work?! With this, my conclusion is the following: don't let my rating discourage you. Find this album and listen to it. If you have ever stopped to stare at a car accident, or considered doing so, this ought to spark your interest.



Standout tracks:

Spoken – ConfusionCONFUSIONnoisufnoc???