Arches of Entropy

Before the lid was even closed on Slugathor, the main songwriter, Tommi Grönqvist, had started out with another project already. That other project is Desecresy. Yes, the misspelling is intentional, must be in this day and age. For one reason or another, Desecresy has Tommi performing all of the instruments himself, only the vocals are done by a friend of his, a live bassist for Slugathor. Obviously, both bass and guitar are familiar to him so no surprises there, but the drums are a bit of a brow raiser.

It actually is very evident in the music. The drums of Ilmari Jalas in Slugathor - an obvious reference point - were always full of groove and little fills and bits to make things interesting. Tommi's drum patterns are... simple to put it bluntly. They rarely if ever change. The tempo stays the same. There are no fills and definitely no frills. While it might be counted as a flaw in some death metal, it actually fits well with the style that Tommi has gone for on the album. Everything is pretty much mid-paced and as said before, the tempo stays the same much of the time. The riffs are rather simplistic as well and repeated often, the same with the sparse leads. There are a few here and there, but all are simplistic and mostly there to enforce the ritualistic aspect of the album.

That's what a lot of the album feels like: A ritual of summoning and conjuration. A ceremony to bring forth unknowable things from the depths of the unfathomable. While everything is rather primitive and simplistic, the definite catchiness is still there. None of the riffs are boring or downright dumb, as catchy things are sometimes wont to be. They're there to serve the purpose of the ritual, not to draw the attention of the listener so they're kept smart and fitting to the whole. The only non-Tommi issue of the album, the vocals, are a hoarse, deep grunt. Not very special, but they're surprisingly sparse as well and serve their purpose surprisingly well.

The album sounds too simple, too uncouth, too quickly done at first listen. Like Tommi was itching to get something out to leave Slugathor's ashes in the dust even before the wake was done. But after a few listens it starts to come together. The riffing and drums coming together as a ritualistic whole. This has been realized and these are the two things brought to the foreground constantly. Even at the rare times the vocals surface, the focus is kept on these two things and how they roll the album forwards, keeping the momentum. Definitely not an album for everyone, but an amazing one nevertheless.

Here is a duo from finland playing some absolutely filthy old school death metal. Jarno handing all the guttural chants and spewing and Tommi handing all other instruments and quite capably! Right from the begining you'll get familar with tempo that is perfected throughout the album. It's not the most inventive thing put to plastic but most of us aren't listening to this style for groundbreaking ideas. There are plenty of meaty chugging riffs throughout the entire 44min album and not a single bad track in the bunch. But on the flipside of that coin there are no true standouts. And that's where the major fault of this album is, once you hear the first track you pretty much heard the rest of the album. 'In the beginning would probably be the most standout track cause it's the shortest so it makes it's impact quickly and then gets out. Most of the rest of the album hovers around 4min mark and kinda feel like they could be shaved of a minute here and there. Another standout track would be 'Ritual Ruins, which is also the longest track, but it has some extremely gripping leads played over a strong melodic base that makes you stand up and take notice while you are listening through the album. An overall good refrence point for the band is Slugathor since both are ex-members thereof.

Another issure I noticed is there are a few sloppy or awkward parts on drums that I noticed. Some sound like accidents and strange fill choices that don't quite fit into the time. Also some of the same beats are used for a majority of the song on most songs and it gets a tad tiresome when listening through on a whole. I can't fault Tommi too much so since he is more of a guitarist than a drummer, and being able to play all instruments and keep them all pretty interesting enough is a huge task to take on so he deserves many props for not resorting to a drummachine.

Production is quite fitting for the style, dirty low guitars, bass plodding right underneath, and just enough highs on the drums to make them audible. Vocals are a little high in the mix for my tastes but they don't completely drown out the rest of the music. I would have appreciated a tad more volume in the guitars, just enough to really bring home the absolute crush of the riffing. The toms also could've stood to use a bit of 'filling out', meaning a bit of reverb, or eqing to make them kinda stand out a bit when they are used instead of sounding flat.

Overall with the few flaws in the album, this is still a good quality release to add to your collection if you are a fan of midpaced crush with haunting leads.