Reviewed by Eric Saeger
Although sporting much better production than they’re used to, this Florida death metal outfit doesn’t need it as much as bands like Nile do. Riff-wise, this is quite experimental in a sense, with guitarist/frontman Erik Rutan trying to find the longest route between two adjacent notes in a (heavy-ass) scale, sort of like Meshuggah in a roundabout way, but meanwhile it’s far less doomy. I more or less assume Rutan’s chromatic axe meanderings are modal in one way or another, but at first listen (which is really about all I can handle when this type of band spends its time puffing out its chest with 64th notes instead of trying to foment unease through actual melody), I can’t really say for sure – whereas Nile has the obvious Egyptian nonsense to rely on, this just sounds like hero worship of old-schoolers, as if this genre is in short supply of that.
Grade: B-
