Excipio

For me, finding a band I enjoy among a style I don't is one of the most frustrating music-related experiences I know, maybe second only to shoving my hand into the mailbox to grab a package of CDs and cutting my fingers on the sharp ends of nails pointing inwards. "Are my goals and priorities in life shifting again?", I ask. "Will I have to go back and reevaluate everything in the field I've ever touched?" Oh, it's a dreary mental state, and one that Excipio faced me with when I first discovered it. The idea of progressive-minded deathcore not making me want to vomit was admittedly rather terrifying. Much to my relief, I've checked up on all the bands like The Faceless and what have ye and I've come to the conclusion that those are still awful and it's more that Kardashev happen to be very good at what they do. A win-win if I ever heard one.

Seriously, make no mistake: as somebody who has almost no interest in deathcore doing anything but playing gritty 2-1-0-2-1-0 power chords and screaming "DOCTORS WON'T BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE YOUR FUCKING FACE", I legitimately take a great deal of pleasure out of almost every bit of music here. There's a number of reasons for that, really, the most important of which probably being that Kardashev don't take the "progressive" tag and then try to write their music around it as if they have to justify using it. There's no intentionally obtuse progressive noodling, the breakdowns are only complex in ways that make sense rhythmically instead of trying to be intentionally indigestible, and riffs are simple when they actually need to be. I also think most people would agree this has a pretty high riff count as far as deathcore goes, even if most of them are more like streams of pretty tremolo and tech-death licks than anything else. Even throughout its breakdowns, which are so choppy that they feel like djent at times, the music doesn't feel quite as hardcore-influenced as a lot of contemporary deathcore tends to. And while it retains a predominantly metal basis, even when it branches away from metal and into more introspective material - be that calm clean guitars or soothing space ambient - it's tastefully-executed and well-composed. It's simply good in a way that very few bands in this sub-subgenre are; perhaps not such a flawless endeavor that all of progressive deathcore's naysayers will bow in awe to Excipio, but I wouldn't doubt it if a few skeptical heads like my own were turned in Kardashev's direction because of it.

And it's interesting that I even feel that way, because at the same time, this is essentially about as clinical and clean as deathcore can possibly sound. In general, this is some of the purest, most robotic-sounding music I've ever heard from the metal spectrum - honestly, it makes something like Rings of Saturn sound wholly man-made and earthy by comparison. Everything feels sterilized and totally removed from human interaction, like each element of the music has been delicately removed from cryogenic storage and gently placed in the sonic space. Normally I hate it when deathcore bands do this, but I feel like the difference is that Kardashev commit so fully to it that it feels more like an intentional atmosphere than a negative side effect of the band's songwriting. For the most part, it's a tasteful type of sterility that I find easy to appreciate: for example, the guitars have a slight tinge of reverb and are mixed in a way that makes them unable to fully "pummel" like most deathcore does, even when the band are playing a breakdown, which leaves the music feeling fully devoted to melody and atmosphere as opposed to brutality. I suppose the heavily triggered drum kit gets a bit aggravating while the band are playing at high tempos, but for the most part the band utilize the polished-over feel entirely to their own advantage.

The resulting atmosphere could really only be described as beautiful. Perhaps not ostentatiously or overtly so, but there are plenty of sections on this EP that fill you with a sort of dazed wonder. The layering of the guitars, in particular, tends to do this a lot - Kardashev seem to be pretty good at writing lead guitars that complement whatever's going on in the meat of the music, and the integration of soft clean melodies with the rhythm tracks also meshes surprisingly well. The blasting sections of the music here feel oddly, but pleasantly "floaty", as if the music as a whole loses any sense of weight and effortlessly lifts whenever they're performed. Taken as a whole, it's a strangely dense, intriguing, and abstract atmosphere that essentially no other deathcore can manage to touch.

The only complaint of mine that isn't basically nitpicking regards the vocals. I enjoy the deep, typical deathcore growls well enough, but the raspy, Mitch Lucker-like screams don't mesh especially well with the inhuman, ethereal atmosphere instilled by the rest of Excipio; I feel like either cutting back on their use or switching to a more alien style would help the music reach its maximum potential. Even as it stands now, it's really rather impressive stuff - while I can't guarantee that the average metalhead will be able to tolerate the amount of chugging present here, I'd advise them to at least give it a shot. This is everything a person like me hates about progressive deathcore, turned on its head and converted into something sincerely great. Go ahead, give it a shot.