Okay, so I don't want to spend too much time on this release since the hype around this album was already pretty high and at this point I could cover my eyes and hit a review of this album with a rock. (Of course the metaphor here being that the Internet is a field or some wooded area and that the metal sites and their reviews are tangible things laying around that I could chuck a rock at. Good? Moving on.)
Noisem made a big splash two years ago with the release of their debut album Agony Defined on A839 Records. A lot of whoop la was made about the old school thrash/death metal sound dished out by these New England teenagers with their sweet riffs. Due to the slight blend of thrash-metal, grindcore and punk, that thing was in every distro and on every blog. Despite how uber crusty the LP cover looked, I still never quite got into that album. The twin guitar solos and thrashy-Slayer-style-semi-clean vocal yells were lost on me. Metal has never been and continues to still not be my bag. I'm sure if I was more into metal and not such a grind snob I would've liked Agony Defined a bit more. I mean it was a decent album. I might also have been imagining it, but Agony Defined gave me an Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses vibe. But what do I know? I'm comparing apples to oranges of two bands I don't listen to.
Now, Noisem returns with their highly anticipated Blossoming Decay; fulfilling several of the many favorable cliched attributes a band's sophomore album could ask for. Too many to list here and now and already written too many times else where. Let's just say it's somewhere between Aliens and Terminator 2. The boys seem to have really matured since their debut. In fact, if I had to choose one word to sum up this new album it'd be "more-maturatismo."
The recently development heavily rests on the shoulders of vocalist, Tyler Carnes. Carnes spearheads a much darker and heavier sound this time around. His vocals are harsher and carry a renewed intensity that I thought he was missing in a much more passive performance on Agony Defined.
In the guitars department we find a new bass player, Billy Carnes, brother of vocalist Tyler Carnes joining the group. This now allowing ex-bassists, Yago Ventura, to move from bass to guitar along side of Sebastian Phillips. Together the two wheel and deal palm mutes, solos and and an all around killer thrash style.
Harley Phillips, you guessed it, brother of guitarist Sebastian Phillips, is also responsible for major changes in the band's sound. The addition of more blasts beats brings the grindcore element to the forefront of the thrash, punk, grind and the standard A839 Record's hardcore sound. The blast beats might be the pivotal reasoning behind my enjoyment of this album as much as I do.
The boys also experiment with some ambient noise intros and interludes. On the LP each side starts with melodic guitar and cello passages. On the CD the tracks play more as a beginning, middle and end. This new choice in experimental instrumentals again showcases the band's growing sophistication as well as helps underline the darkness of Blossoming Decay.
This is not an up and up grind album, but touches base on the old school death-grind sounds of bands like Repulsion and Cretin. I'm also reminded of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's last album Agorapocalypse, which had a huge thrash influence and similar vocals, yet with more variation.
Blossoming Decay is another step forward in the growing music trend of blurring the lines of the extreme genres. Like I said previously, I'm not too experienced in metal, but I'm going to go ahead and pigeonhole Noisem as a thrash-metal band with at least one album I like. The guys finally have an album that I think matches the intensity of their live performances.
FFO: Repulsion, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Cretin, Toxic Holocaust, Brutal Truth
No comments:
Post a Comment