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.