Spawning the Nephilim

Lord Mantis play an aggressive blend of thrashy, blackened sludge that doesn't take itself too seriously (they do have a song called "Hit by a Bus" after all). While the group takes influence from a number of styles, they manage to make everything mesh together with a surprising amount of aesthetic unity. Unfortunately, the songwriting on Spawning the Nephilim is far from perfect, with jarring jumps from riff to riff. Further sullying the disc's chances of leaving a strong impression is the hit-or-miss quality of the riffs themselves. These missteps result in an enjoyable but decidedly mediocre release.

Riffs on this album alternate between menacing thrash assaults and stuttering slow-motion hardcore and doom segments. One of my biggest issues with the sound of this album is that the production was clearly meant to favor the latter, with a huge amount of rumbling low end and a generally muddy sound. This renders the faster riffs into indistinct walls of distorted humming and the lack of treble buries the eerie lead lines (see if you can find the one near the beginning of the title track) under all the slop. There are a few moments where the guitar tone genuinely adds to the enjoyment of a particular riff, but far more often it's detracting from the experience. The bass is quite audible throughout the album, but has that sort of Korn-ish tone to it that blends together with the low end of the guitar, contributing to the general slop. For a prime example of the lackluster riffing getting further dragged through the mud by these production issues, check out the aforementioned "Hit by a Bus."

Like most things on this album, the drumming is a mixed bag. It's as if drummer Bill Bumgardner just sort of passively sat around playing the most basic of beats appropriate to whatever riff is going on at the time, but every once in a while someone poked him with a stick, at which point he perked up and wanked all over his drum kit, only to doze off again moments later. There are a few moments where he reaches a happy compromise where the drumming is propulsive and engaging without going overboard.

The vocals are equally all over the place. Sometimes we get strained-throat hardcore screams, sometimes these morph into blackened rasps, sometimes there are mid-range growls and often there are combinations of these. Each of the styles is performed competently, but unfortunately styles seem to change direction on a whim and don't always seem relevant to the music being played. Sometimes the vocals are somewhat buried in the mix, overpowered by the cacophony of instrumentation going on around them. Generally the higher pitched screams come through better as they don't have to fight with guitar, which means that these are typically the most appealing styles on the album.

The uneven songwriting is truly problematic on this album. Only one song, the title track, stands out as being both solidly high-quality and coherent. In other songs, riffs either bore me to tears, make very little musical sense or often enough, both. The transitions from one riff to the next rarely seem logical. On paper, this blend of styles sounds quite promising as there's a lot of potential for catchy riffing coupled with a really hate-filled delivery. However, the muddy production job turns what's already a jumbled, uninteresting performance into something even less listenable. However, despite its problems there are some interesting bits and the boring parts are more inoffensive than awful, keeping this afloat but just barely. Recommended only to those desperately looking for music of this style but who have exhausted better options (Graves at Sea, Fleshpress).