The Precious Ideal

Chordotomy’s album The Precious Ideal has a generous amount of sinister tremolo riffs that recall Swedes like Dismember and England’s glorious Bolt Thrower (listen to the tune “Human Derangement” for an example of the latter), but their slamming sections are mediocre without exception. The album and this band are a mixed bag, but overall, good enough to investigate.

The sampled intro, which is a montage of new clips, is just way, way, way too long even the first time you hear it. It's an off putting way to begin the album. Also, for the most part, each song is too long, though I do like that they're at least trying to make bigger, more expansive songs in this genre. And then there's the sound itself, which is quite muddy-- a lot of clogged up midrange where the layers of guitar don’t fully line up, which further aggravates things. So it's got some real problems.

Despite all of this, The Precious Ideal works to a modest degree and might appeal to classic death metal fans who generally don't go for slam, because this outfit seems like an old school death metal band that uses guttural vocals and plays in a contemporary slamming style, despite their natural old school tendencies and talents.

I expect that Chordotomy will get better—maybe even become top notch—since they have a very good sense of sinister melody and write more patient music than a lot of these bands, but the slam aspect of Chordotomy seems like an add-on at this stage and not as good as their classic death metal material. I'll save this one, hoping for a better realized follow-up.