III - The Art of Losing All

An easy comparison to be made with Fleshpress is Japan's enigmatic Corrupted. Both are at the top of their game, but for whatever reason I've been sucked into Fleshpress, maybe even obsessed with Fleshpress; more then I could ever picture being into Corrupted. Fleshpress churns out massive riff after massive riff until they let humble feedback and a more restrained riff ease the massive head trauma you're sure to have sustained. If you don't believe me about these so called ball-busting, megaton bludgeoning riffs, check out the riff one "All Hope Lost / Becoming Soil" at 1:47. That riff alone could be used as a weapon of mass destruction.

While Fleshpress' self-titled was an amazing work of sludgey goodness, it was more forward and direct, something that Fleshpress has strayed away from with each consecutive LP. III - The Art of Losing All sees Fleshpress developing and honing in on the crucial aspects of what creates such a powerful and simply devastating atmosphere. Fleshpress adheres to no strict formula, but you can still find the typical structure of buildups, calm(er) breaks, and then megalithic riffs. Beyond that Fleshpress tends to stay at a Grief style, snail crawl for the most part. The songs trudge and they trudge, they lean back and relax, then trudge and trudge again, then in the last few moments or so you're treated to an awesome explosion of pounding drums and a more faster section similar to Eyehategod. This happens around the last two minutes of the first track. We get a powerful build-up until a sea of feedback and raspy black metal-esque screams fill the speakers and then pounding drums cut through it all into a magnificent triumph of an ending. Along with that part, the clam cross-stick and muted guitar section at around 14:00 on All Hope Lost / Becoming Soil is a simple, but gripping piece of atmosphere that is another highlight of the album.

Sludgey comparisons aside, Fleshpress is a unique and well-developed band. They never release the same album twice, yet they retain a distinctive flavour throughout all their releases. They are a band that is able to continually develop and intrigue me, they manifest themselves in a way few bands really can. The perfect production job is done for this album, those guitars are just dirty enough, without being a mess, Mikko's playing sounds menacing and immensely powerful, and the vocals are ultimately viral and perfectly placed in the mix.

While Fleshpress are labeled as having Black Metal influence, it's really only in the vocals, which are a bit throatier than the cliche black metal voice, along with that one could say the dark atmosphere is also an ode to black metal, but that's kind of stretching it. So don't be scared by the black metal tag, this is sludge, no ifs and or buts. Amazing, powerful, deep, and destructive sludge.