Blossoming Decay

File this one under "Album titles that accurately describe the music." Also under "When the description is negative in every genre except metal." If a dead, decaying flower could blossom, these guys would be reaching full bloom. On Blossoming Decay, Noisem serves up a slab of death/thrash metal that hits with a charge of youthful energy and pours on the destruction and rotting corpses. It’s a quick trip, clocking in at under 25 minutes. Only three of the tracks surpass the three-minute mark. Is it all one big blur? Mostly. Does that make it boring? Not in the slightest.

It's clear that the band have one sound in mind when they write: condensed brutality. The formula is straightforward enough; unrelenting speed, blast beats mixed with thrash d-beats, riffs that heavily ride the low string, and shouting/screaming vocals. Sounds pretty normal for death/thrash, which it is. But Noisem, for all their simplicity, manages to cram a lot of sounds into every song, so that it feels like each one is nearly bursting at the seams. I remember reading about how, during the recording of Reign in Blood, Slayer was instructed to do multiple takes of each song, and the one that sounded like the band was about to fall apart at any second was the take that went on the album. Similarly, each song on Blossoming Decay sounds like the band is about to explode into utter insanity, but just manages to keep it together until the end of the song--when they regroup in half a second and blast out again.

Having a formula like that only works, however, if you can back it up with some serious high-quality riffs. Luckily, Noisem delivers those in spades. The first riff of the intro track, “Trail of Perturbation,” sets the stage nicely; it blasts through on the low string for a measure before chugging a few times with the drum fill. It’s undeniably heavy, and each repetition feels like being crushed under an anvil, Looney Tunes style. The same can be said for the rest of the songs. Each track shoots by at breakneck speed, and the band only slows down the pace twice on the whole album; a mid-paced section on “1132,” and the creepy, feedback-filled interlude that transitions between “Hostile End--Hollow Life” and “Cascade of Scars” (that same interlude also bookends the album). The interlude is excellently done, as it gives the listener a chance to catch their breath but creates an extremely foreboding and dark atmosphere that heightens the tension before “Cascade of Scars” really gets going.

Solos don’t stand out noticeably, but get the job done. They too are reminiscent of Slayer, in that they mostly consist of chaotic weedily-weedily action up and down the fretboard, with some whammy bar thrown in here and there for good measure. The only solo that really grabbed my attention was the second one in “Blossoming of the Web,” starting out with a few massive dive bombs before spiraling into insanity again. So the solos aren’t bad, but they're nothing you haven’t heard before. Luckily, they fit in with the music excellently, so there you go.

The same can be said about the bass and drums; they aren’t flashy and they get the job done, which is excellent because Noisem is clearly a very rhythm-guitar driven band. The bass adds a heavy low end to the mix and introduces a few songs, while the drums careen this way and that, mostly carrying the guitars along as they do their job. The band members all know their place and do their jobs well, which makes Noisem a strong, cohesive, and deadly unit.

All in all, Blossoming Decay is an outstanding release that should be looked into by any fan of death and/or thrash metal. Noisem are definitely on my radar after this album, which has everything I could ask for on it. It’s intense, straightforward, and obliterates everything in its path. The riffs that drive the music are the cream of the crop, and while there’s not much else that’s super special about it, the entire band rallies around each other to make this a blistering experience. Check it out to see “Intensity” taken to a whole new level.