Psycroptic released a pearler of an album in 2008. ‘Ob(servant)’ was a true smack in the face to anyone (including me) who thought they would never release an amazing album again. One would have wondered again if these guys were back to being on the verge of ‘World Domination’ as Uraniummusic.com put it back in early 2005. For these ears at least, ‘The Inherited Repression’ was going to have to do something really special to top ‘Ob(servant)’.
Well again, it is a showcase of excellent technical musicianship. I mean, I can’t think of too many other bands that spit out what feels like a zillion twists and turns in a matter of seconds before grooving out sensationally. Joe Haley’s guitar work is just ridiculous. Every melodic riff that he creates is virtually a shred. The way he weaves all that disjointedness is second to none. Think of it as an old chainsaw that keeps playing up and can’t cut straight and finally when it decides to work properly in brief moments, it can saw the most perfect groove with it. The signature grooves and twisted melodies are there throughout.
Like Joe’s guitar work, Dave Haley’s drumming is always equally as good. Just blistering along with the disjointed whirlwind of melodies before letting the kicks fade back with the grooves but in odd spurts will just break out into more chaotic displays to distract at times from the grooving that takes place. A mechanical beast going crazy, knowing when to calm down and knowing when to just hit you out of nowhere with a spray of a zillion bullets from the machine gun it has hidden behind it’s steel chest.
I find a more hardcore like tone to Jason’s vocals this time around. Here, you will not find any brutal gutturals or bellows, but rather a straining like shout, but with great strength and force behind them. Sometimes you get a quick bite or chomp and other times you get a drawn out yell. By crafting his own style, he has helped take this band beyond being just another tech death band. No wonder these guys are appealing more to a death core base of fans as opposed to the death metal heads they were stunning eight years or more back.
However, after all this, there always has to be a ‘but’. For all the fluttering, all the blistering, all the shifting whirlwinds of disjointed chaos.. Nothing really blows me away. ‘Ob(servant)’ was memorable in every way. From riffs, to songs, to beats to vocals, you name it. So much stood out in every way, shape and form. On ‘The Inherited Repression’, well it’s just ‘there’. Nothing really stands out. Albums like ‘Ob(servant)’ and ‘The Scepter Of The Ancients’ had a perfect balance between grooving riffs and crazy tech melodies where as TIR seems to fall into the same trap ‘Symbols Of Failure’ had where there seemed to be too much focus on the melodies and less grooving. Even Jason’s vocals are missing that brutal variation he had on ‘Ob(servant)’.
I know, as the above paragraphs suggest, I sound like I am blown away. But I am really not. ‘Ob(servant)’ was just that damn fucking good in my book, so good that it even eclipsed ‘The Scepter Of The Ancients’ which seemed for some time there that even that was impossible to top. I guess TIR had a lot to live up to for me. Oh, and on a side note, I wish I could talk about a ridiculous bass line from Cameron. But this chaotic display on every album always overshadows him even though you know he is fucking ridiculous at what he does too. Maybe next time.
As the album cover might symbolize, they do seem a bit short of breath here. But at least the gas mask is on which means it will keep them alive and keep one optimistic that in a few years time they will unleash something out of the ball park yet again. But hey, this is just how I feel. They will garner praise again and understandably and deservedly so. Here, expectations were high, and sometimes when they are high, something great is sometimes not enough.
Ikil
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