Voracious Contempt

I obtained this after seeing some tantalizing live and album clips on youtube, as is often the case. Overall I'd say it's... pretty good. Not by any means perfect but it is getting repeat listens.

It's NY death metal. Their sound bears a great resemblance to Suffocation. Shifting tempos crash into each other. Straight 'suffo blasts' abound (but are not the only blast used). I feel though that this album has a bit of its own character; it isn't Effigy of the Forgotten Part II by any means. Their riffing and compositional style is more streamlined and to the point. There is more emphasis on the varying textures of shifting beats over the same riff, and also those ever satisfying tempo shifts. Basically this album 'slams' more frequently than the at times thrashy or clinically technical Suffocation, whom this band is forever cursed to be compared to. They get a lot of credit for creating the basis of that awesome/shitty death metal sub-genre, "slam". I think the credit is deserved.

The performance/production: Decent and dissapointing, respectively. Drums sound a little dirty, but very natural. I really don't mind the drum production at all. I appreciate the lack of click-clacky trigger happy kicks. The guitarists are fairly tight here and play some bad ass riffs... but that tone is horrible! So scooped and buzzy. I'm in the process of tabbing the excellent second track 'Anointed in Servitude' and am often having to listen to the bass to make out what is going on. That implies that the bass is audible, which it is... which is nice. The vocals are pretty decent. He growls with a decent amount of ennunciation. At times he might sound a little cheesy, though. I really don't like to listen to this album through headphones, due largely to the awful guitar tone. It's great fun blasting this bad boy out of some speakers, though. The production doesn't strike me as being quite up to par for a death metal album released in 1995.