Deprive

Big Chocolate has had this strange rep in the music scene garnering all sorts of mixed reactions between electronic and extreme metal. Ending off in 2013, with a dual album release set; Deprive and Black Earth Child, the lone American musician found himself in this battle of facing the wrath between bringing some brutality asset continuous breakdowns or even his experimentation with djent riffs as seen on his 2012 EP Sleeper

Deprive is only half of the two releases that reached release in one day by Disfiguring the Goddess. And in some ways (or all) this album sets the expected standards for Disfiguring the Goddess' recent years while adding into that bit of element seen in his early recordings as heard on the self-titled debut. His signature guttural growl backed by shimmering riffs are an ongoing effort to this album, but while having that said, he manages to hold onto that same comfort zone he never felt compelled to venture out of. Breakdowns? Yes, they're still here. There's a lot of them. This release (like all Disfiguring the Goddess releases) is really just a deathcore album wearing a brutal death metal mask. BDM guitar tunings, BDM vocals and a production job that shares some similarities to almost the same way how he mixes his electronic music is all here. In some ways, Deprive feels like last year's Sleeper sans the djent trend in every riff.

Cheesy symphonic passages (keyboards and faux violins) are found here too to give the music that strange ambient effect that he has tend to have been fond of since the days of his 2008 Defaced from Humanity demo tape. By the time this album ends, it then hits me that I feel like the production is what really keeps me from enjoying it as much had it not been the overly clean sounding guitars and overall overproduced effect he had on it. To prove this is the case, the release contains a hidden bonus track; a song that is raw and long from production's polish in the long run and by the time this track came on, it seriously felt like I enjoyed this one song more than the whole album itself.

It's safe to assume at this point that Disfiguring the Goddess will never be anything more than just some very experimental deathcore/brutal death metal. He doesn't seem to ever want to give up the abundance of breakdowns - and even worse, going as far to false advertise his music as "slam", which is just a pity. As far as I've noticed, Disfiguring the Goddess has never even had one slam in its music for years. The last time I heard a legit slam was maybe in one or two parts on the Circle of Nine album and even before that, Disfiguring the Goddess' earliest material from back in 2007 had maybe one or two songs that included a slam riff or two and that was about it. Kids are easily fooled by this. They can be fooled into thinking Disfiguring the Goddess' fretless chug-chug parts are "slams" and not the breakdowns they actually are.

Deprive is just same old Disfiguring the Goddess that has been done for 6 years now. It's nothing new, just basically repackaged Circle of Nine and Sleeper material with new experimentation on the fly. Suffice to say, this album is rehashed music that Big C has done for years, and for some reason, evidently never grew the slightest tired of. Check this release out only if you're a diehard Choco fan. Other than that, it's just not that special.