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Okazaki Fragments > Abandoned > Reviews > bayern
Okazaki Fragments - Abandoned

A Bewitching Cacophony of Sounds - 92%

bayern, April 24th, 2018

This talented batch can’t set their minds on a certain formation as they have been establishing and disbanding various configurations for the past 13/14 years having started first as the death/thrash outfit Mark of Cain (two albums released) before settling for a brief spell with the moniker here, and now having already moved on under the name Akakor.

As Mark of Cain they played some ravishing hyper-active technical death/thrash which showed them quite expert at shredding with precision and velocity at times touching base with their compatriots Martyr and the Germans Necrophagist, among other luminaries. Very good stuff that was toned down on the sophomore for a more linear, more mechanical approach, but was notched up on the album reviewed here quite a bit in nearly every compartment. Whatever shades of thrash were present on the previous instalments have been erased off the map, the delivery now being quite intense dissonant technical death metal siding with mathcore in a way not remote from acts like Psyopus, Pillory, Fulcrum, and Maruta.

In other words, expect a highly-stylized, fairly abstract at times as well, interpretation of our favourite death which threatens to tumble into a not very digestible Portal-esque cavalcade on the title-track, the hysterical overshouty vocals dissipating the chaotic rifforamas which are amazingly at their least decipherable when not played at the speed of light. The super-intricate cacophony reaches hysterical fever-pitch quite early on “First Contact” where the slow/fast alternation is applied every few seconds creating dizziness, the spasmodic blast-beats having a weird mechanical, robotic aura. The more squeamish may stop listening after this cut, and this may have been the right choice as later on this saga reaches ultimately surreal dimensions with dissonance occupying more space on the disorienting shape-shifting “Vermin” which refuses to follow a more linear structure, “The Earth Aflame” moving even closer to the jam session-like atmosphere with a fountain of charmingly dishevelled guitarisms.

“Abominations” instills some order with less hectic arrangements and brilliant twisted melodies, no fast-paced outrages here, and “Huddled Masses” is an even more fascinating piece with sudden speedy urges and a couple of superb sewing machine-like staccato rhythms, a few melodic pirouettes beautifying the environment. “Descension” stirs a whirlwind of abstract mathcore-ish skirmishes and enchanting melodic developments, a compelling contrasting combination both sides jumping each other in the most unheralded frenetic fashion all the way to “As the Planet Falls”, a dissonant masterpiece that would be hard to match even by gigans… sorry, giants like Gigan, an amorphous roller-coaster with a more officiant, less speed-prone veneer that doesn’t sit still even for a split second, covering a wide ground within just 3-min, the vocals surprisingly replaced by much lower-tuned guttural ones for a large portion of the time.

A captivating spacey psychedelic, quite intense as well, opera with all the fragments adeptly stitched together, also making perfect sense as separate parts, siding with the more abstract, more surreal side of the death metal fraternity that has been growing exponentially in the past few years. The mathcore connection at this stage isn’t that prominent, and the utilization of the several more melodic passages gives it a somewhat warm flair, keeping it away from the bleak dystopian vistas of space-outers like Klast, Gorguts, and Ulcerate.

Said vistas won’t be able to claim them, at least not in that form; the band have already jumped on another wagon, Akakor, a brutal all-instrumental technical death metal project which follows a marginally more orthodox path, blending the super-technicality of Necrophagist with the aggressive riff-mongery of the dazzling brutality movement (Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Decrepit Birth, etc.). Another eye-opener for sure although one may catch him/herself craving more of those addictive dissonant soundscapes that are so wonderfully drawn here.