Initializing Irreversible Process

This review was first published on the Deaf Sparrow Facebook page on 11 October 2016. Written by Stanley Stepanic.

Technical death metal never ceases to amaze me in how stubborn it is about its aesthetic. Aliens, man and machine made as one, tubes everywhere, smoke coming out of everything, lights, factories of the future, Giger-worship temples, it's very easy to pick it out. But if you're going to do it, I guess having Par Olofsson behind the art is a good idea, in fact that's the only reason I even wanted to listen to this.

Italy's Deceptionist, though, have a little more to say than the textbook technical death metal comedy ensemble. As usual, I listened before I really checked out what the band had to say, and then from there I looked around at other critics. They're usually wrong, just so you know, I mean who doesn't at this point, I'm famous or something, but in certain ways other hacks were right about "Initializing Irreversible Process."

Listen, you're clearly going into this not looking for a single atom of anything new in terms of theme. We've seen this all before, it's just the art is better. Humans, machines, blah blah blah loop stack (Assembly Language joke there, I know). So yes, pretty lame in that regard, I don't even know how anyone still has the guts to do it. But where Deceptionist prove you a little wrong is in their playing, in fact that's obviously why Unique Leader Records picked them up, because other than this particular release they only have a demo to their name. Let me be clear, these guys are not man become machine, they are man become riff. That's entirely what you listen to this for, the riffing, and honestly it's absolutely stellar most of the time. Some of the notation played perfectly in tune with the kick drum makes the whole man/machine thing seem less Kraftwerk, more dystopian fiction. Good. These guys fly all over the goddamned place, enough that it survives multiple listens, though it has a tendency to become redundant. Their delivery is typical, as are the vocals, and there's the occasional sample, such as a plane flying overhead, that will give you a second's "ugghhh" pause, but if you're looking for technicality, this will do it, for the time being. I hope a band of this ilk learns to work a different theme some day, I really do, but something about this genre leaves it stuck in what it perceives to be the future, when in actuality it's far in the past.