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Abysmal production cannot ruin excellent songwriting - 71%
Because of the title character limit, my original intended title for this review was "Abysmal production cannot ruin excellent songwriting, but holy shit please make the production at least decent before leaving this rage-inducing dumpster fire onto this world" because holy shit Hull what the fuck were you smoking when you mastered this, everything sounds like it has put through a black metal filter that makes Fleshgod's Agony sound like anything mastered by Colin Marston.
ICDD has been a very wacky and weird band when it comes to sound, and this album is no different. If anything, this album might be their weirdest thanks to their unconventional songwriting structures, even compared to their later albums, due to their inexperiences in songwriting conventions and all.
Because of said unconventional songwriting, his album changes their genres from song to song, one song can be an intro to some generic Japanese soap opera, and then the next song can be a prog song straight out of Dream Theater with Japanese elements and harsh vocals, while the next can just a music box with some eldritch narration in the background. All this while sounding oddly coherent and meshes well with the style that is shown on the cover art
With all that said, the horrible production betrays the excellent songwriting. Honestly I was not expecting this level of bad production since the folks here have a side-project that released an album in the immediate year with far cleaner production, but maybe this was the first time the band mixed and mastered a song and Hull quickly realized how much he fucked up and improved quickly.
Meanwhile the same inexpereince also led to some really creative songwriting decisions, since all the songs sound really wacky and unique since they differ from genre to genre, and no two songs sound the same, which is a gripe I have with the second album where all the songs are at least rooted in melodic death metal while this album can change from melodic black metal to gothic metal on a dime.
Despite the issues with the production, the instruments are actually played really well, the entire thing sounds coherent and has some proggy keyboard solos, particularly in track 3, and this is something they did not go back and revisit in their other albums and EPs, which is a bummer because it might provide something genuinely new and innovative to today's state of symphonic death metal, much less back in 2009. Another thing about the drums is that despite being programmed, the bad production might have made the drums sound more human by making it sound more raw and dirty to mirror the enviroment of a shitty studio and equipment.
And now to the vocals, the female vocalist, Kylie, is objectively a bad singer here because of how off key her notes were and it was irritating to sit through, but in the same time it gives the album a more human sounding vocals, as if it really is sung by the female character on the cover who (I assume) never went through any vocal training. Meanwhile Rib's vocals... its really surprising how he managed to attain such vocal ability at such a young age since all his vocal prowess are all present here like the long winding screeches and deep gutterals that resemble Frank Mullen, and here it features something not present in his albums past this one, its the male variant of the "One-Woman Wail" trope in track 7, it genuinely sounds like something grim and PTSD inducing has happened and he is trying to cope with it by screaming and crying, its a powerful moment and I'm surprised that he can capture the spirit of a pained and tortured soul well in this track.
Let just hope ICDD remakes this album with the new members they got, because with their current reputation it might make people appreciate the diamond in the rough that is this album, since there are some genuinely bad problems plaguing this album, and despite all of that it features some of the most creative and brilliant songwriting in their discography. Please give this a try even if i gave it a subpar score, the songwriting and ideas are THAT good, the score just reflects how horrendous the production/mixing was.
Pros: Creative and excellent songwriting, unconventional song structures, keyboard solos
Cons: Veyr off key female vocals to the point of being distracting, black metal tier production on an album that DOES NOT benefit from it
Favourite tracks: Track 3, 4, 6, 8, 10
Least favourite tracks: The rest since listening to them on their own is ill advised, and listening the album from start to finish is the best way to experience these songs. This does not mean they are bad songs however.
FFO: ICDD's other 2 albums, Vermillion-D Alice Syndrome, Kokuyasou, Japanese gothic/power metal/rock like Malice Mizer, Versailles, Moi de Moix, and symphonic black metal like Odium and Limbonic Art
