The War at the Edge of Existence

There honestly isn't much to say about this album, and not only due to its brevity (with seven songs clocking in at fifteen minutes and change). So little seems to happen, so little really stands out and draws the listener in-- and though at least a little of the blame for that can be pinned on the brief runtimes of the songs, it mostly comes down to poor songwriting and ineffectual riffs.

For one, I have no clue where anybody gets off calling The War at the Edge of Existence a slam death metal album, since there are three, maybe four riffs that could actually, arguably, be called slams. The rest of the album operates primarily in mid-paced tremolo lines, groovy power chords, lurching deathcore chugs, and spacey faux-atmospheric leads, and although the riffs are at least somewhat varied, none of them are actually all that interesting, or memorable, or, well, good. Your average metalhead with a passing idea of what brutal death metal vaguely sounds like could, if handed a guitar and given five minutes, probably come up with riffs about as creative or impressive as these. They're mostly boring, don't really sound evil or brutal or any of the usual adjectives you'd like applied to your death metal, and seem to simply exist for a bit and then move on to the next one. Occasionally, something bordering on decent will manage to hoist itself up out of the muck-- for example, that punkish, d-beat backed riff in Annihilation-- but it doesn't last long before delving back into mediocrity.

The drums fare a whole hell of a lot better, keeping things mixed up with a healthy variety of beats, some of which are surprisingly unconventional. Samantha Michelle Smith won't exactly be making a name for herself as a virtuosic drummer, but she does keep more in her toolbox than d-beats and double bass-- she throws in interesting little off-kilter grooves and cymbal fills, eschewing the staple of brutal death metal percussion, the hallowed blast beat, entirely. Unfortunately, the drums don't really compensate for the general snoozefest that is the riffing on this album, but with the guitars so content to exhibit about as much creativity as a third-rate fanfiction writer, it helps that the drums have at least one foot off the beaten path.

Now, Smith's vocals have managed to garner a bit of notoriety in her work both on Fight the Demiurge and other projects such as Guttural Slug, and that's for good reason. As comparisons go, the best I can come up with is Demilich's Antti Boman after spending the years since Nespithe was recorded on a diet of brutal death metal. She mostly operates in the constraints of that single vocal style, but manages to avoid monotony by introducing a surprisingly subtle sort of dynamic to the vocals-- her voice takes on shades of a pig squeal, or a roar, or a guttural rasp, without ever really straying too far out of that Antti Boman-gone-brutal box.

As unique and well-executed as the vocals are, however, just like the drums, they're just not going to save this release from the mercilessly dull riffing. These just aren't the vocals these riffs deserve, or maybe these aren't the riffs the vocals deserve: it's a shame that an accomplished drum performance and fairly exceptional vocals should be wasted on such lazy, tepid guitar work. Fight the Demiurge is still a very young band, though, and I can easily see Samantha Michelle Smith's project becoming a standout name in the brutal death metal scene if she can manage to take the various modes of riffing exhibited on The War at the Edge of Existence and produce riffs that don't sound like she hastily came up with them five minutes before heading into the recording studio. It's too late for this release, however, which isn't worth even its brief runtime. Look up maybe one song for Smith's excellent vocals, and you'll have gotten pretty much everything The War at the Edge of Existence is worth.

There’s no shortage of the female persuasion in today’s metal scene, but few can stand toe-to-toe with Samantha Michelle Smith, a 21-year-old brutalizer who has made it her mission in life to dole out some of the heaviest music going.

The heiress apparent to the deathly throne of Vanessa Nocera, Smith has already proven herself quite prolific, actively playing with bands like Guttural Slug, Broken Anatomy, and Ennoea. Her latest release is The War at the Edge of Existence, the full-length debut from her one-woman slamming brutal death metal band Fight the Demiurge.

Not too far removed from Cameron Argon and his Disfiguring the Goddess project, the multi-instrumentalist Smith injects a sense of mechanized evil into the music, a sci-fi trait that owes itself to the album’s guitar tone and its systematic drumming patterns. In addition to her improved guitar playing, it’s plain to hear that Smith is growing more and more comfortable with DYI production. With depth charges and a swirling atmosphere, a track like “The Coming” showcases her enhanced songwriting skills, and the record’s overall flow is neatly mapped, heaving boulders from track to track while Smith’s monstrous vocals – deeper, uglier, and more cavernous than ever – are roared and gurgled with a smart sense of placement and pulse.

As far as slam albums go, The War at the Edge of Existence doesn’t quite attain the status of show-stopper, as it seems to rely on its gargantuan production to do most of the heavy-lifting. But this isn’t to say that riffs and slams aren’t there for the taking. The intro to “Annihilation” is thunderous and far too short-lived, and there’s no shortage of blood-flow when an ungodly gallop emerges around the 25 second mark (and then again at 1:11) of the destructive “Parallax.”

While this reviewer would have desired a few more creative slams or momentum shifts, Smith does an effective job of cramming The War at the Edge of Existence with a robust assortment of simple, punchy riffs that never fail in choking the life out of the room. If it wasn’t before, Fight the Demiurge should find itself on the brutal death metal map with this gut-check of a debut release.

Written for The Metal Observer

Man am I glad I found this. The first of hopefully many releases from this one woman slam band. As a musician myself I have a massive amount of respect for anyone who has the drive to wear all the hats entailed in writing and recording and this young lady does an excellent job at all of them. Those of you thinking that this is a gimmick or that gender would hamper the quality are sorely mistaken. This girl is good, and though this project is young it already destroys much of what the genre has to offer.

And how does it do this? Easy. The damn thing is MEMORABLE above all else. On top of that she has two massive strengths. One. She knows how to write a strong riff, and just about every one on this recording falls into that category. There’s nothing overly technical about them, they are somewhat primitive in the best possible way, and they are just crushing and catchy at the same time, a nice balance. I love a guitarist that knows you don’t have to cram a thousand notes into a riff to make it a good one. The rest of the music built around these riffs rumbles along for the most for the most at a mid-paced chug that makes me think of a group of tanks rolling across a battlefield, probably not too far from what Bolt Thrower would sound like if they were a slam band. This is broken up by a few faster parts and some short spacey melodic sections that do a great job of keeping the music from becoming monotonous or one dimensional.

The second major strength, and what really put this thing over the top for me was the vocals. She reminds me of Antti Boman from Demilich. That strange guttural gurgle he had was so far ahead of it’s time, and she really has that down, at least to these ears. Anyone that sounds like Antti gets an immediate pass to my list of top death metal vocalists. Her tone is clear and strong throughout, she has good vocal patterns, and she doesn’t sound like a pig getting its ass kicked. Just awesome. My favorite part of this band for sure.

The bass guitar and drum programming are both competent and well performed, and it will be good to see them get even better in the future. They do get overshadowed a little by the other half of the recording but that’s more do to how great that other half is. It is hard to pick a stand out track here as it is just solid from start to finish and the songs are short, but if I had to choose highlights I would pick the title track because it is a good representation of the whole sound of the album, and The Coming, which makes great use of the aforementioned melodies while the atmosphere and sick vocals keep the song from being any less brutal than the rest of them.

I really like the recording itself. It has a nice old school edge to it and the guitars have a nice raw sound to them instead of being scooped to fuck. The playing is tight but the rawness of the recording gives it this ever so slight loose feel to it that really adds to the sound and helps it stand apart from so many bands in this style. She does a great job here as well.

Complaints? None, really. This is very short, and some might not consider this an album, but even though the running time is not long to me this feels like a complete album. One could argue for longer songs and this may happen naturally as the style of the project matures, but for what this is I really enjoy these short stabs of brutality. I take the ten percent off more because there is still room to grow here than for any weakness in what is on display here.

This is more than worth your time. Get this now.