The Dead End Experiment

Attention all fans of technical death metal! Listen up! For this CD needs to be heard! Let it be known that I am not the biggest fan of tech death metal but by jove this is an absolute cruncher!

Now I had only heard of these guys via their connection legendary Nile sticksman, George Kollias, who is a fellow Greek and also their ex-drummer. This is the 2nd offering and with this in mind that gives you a slight inkling of what you are in for with this album!

Upon first listen, I wasn't too struck on the production but it all fell into place when I listened further. There is a clarity in this album which needs to be there for there is alot of intricate riffing both in the bass and the guitars. When I heard this the production made total sense! It's hard to actually categorize these guys but their music is dark, evil and very heavy. I hear slight hints of Immolation in the twisty contorted riffs but as well as that I hear influences drawing from every thing from atmospherics to even monk like chanting. One thing about this album is that it's real goddamn fast but it's finely balanced with slower groovier parts.

Check out the track "Lay Rotten, Never Forgotten" for a display of the ferocity of this band. I also hear influences from Suffocation and Origin for the speed and technicality but as I say these guys utilize groove to suck you in and then smash your face in with sheer heaviness (see "Mirrors Only Reflect Dead Bodies").

This is an album that is full of interesting hooks and patterns that it keeps the listener interested. There is absolutely no filler tracks on this CD as each track is a journey through bludgeoning hell! This CD is an absolute must have!

A couple years past, this Greek band released When Landscapes Bled Backwards, a reasonable debut of acrobatic, brutal death metal with a refreshing, crisp bite to it. There was room for improvement there, room which Sickening Horror have swollen into with their follow-up The Dead End Experiment, a fusion of pure old school death metal and the band's playful, progressive elements that is sure to blow the mind of many an avid death maven.

This album has chops. Brutality. And a bizarre sense of dynamics which manifests in the bass playing of Ilias Darras and the fusion-like sequences that erupt in numerous tracks. "Dusk" opens with a techno drum beat behind which excellent, frightening guitars cascade before the band blasts you directly out of reality. Then the verse...which is like fusion/funk...and back to the grind. I am reminded slightly of Spheres from Pestilence, or Obscura from Gorguts (though not nearly as wild and discordant as the latter). "The Universe Within" flattens you with sheer speed, excellent riffing, a Pestilence-like groove, and some great leads. "24 Januaries" features more of the band's bizarre, progressive structure interspersed with huge grooves. All the while, the band retains their ear for great old school death rhythms circa the dawn of the style. The album is interesting through its entirety, but I'll name "Murdered Silence", "Children of the Swamp" and "Dressed in Madness" as other favorites.

The Dead End Experiment often feels like a lower budget recording, but still quite nice. The guitars create a death metal circus while the bass sounds like a cadre of extraterrestrial stoners communicating through bong hits. The leads wail off through the cosmos and, really, you couldn't ask for much more. This is just a fucking great death metal album, and it's unique atmosphere makes it stand out that much more. The band has outdone themselves, and I can only imagine what they will think up next.

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For starters, let me make one thing perfectly clear. In case you’re not familiar with Sickening Horror’s debut ‘When Landscapes Bled Backwards’, go listen to it right now. In the field of modern technical death metal, that album has to be one of the darkest, most eccentric, experimental and original, not to mention one of the best I’ve heard to date. However, since you’re reading this, it would make sense to assume you’re mainly interested in ‘The Dead End Experiment’; therefore I will make it equally clear that you can’t go wrong with this one either. We all should know how much work it must take to write a suitable follow-up for a fantastic debut – well, as “difficult second albums” go, Sickening Horror have done an outstanding job.

First thing to be noticed is that the riffs are actually not that technical – certainly not as technical as one might expect. If technical death metal can ever be described as atmospheric, we have a case in point right here. Sure, the odd rhythms, dissonant (as well as more conventional) melodies and, in a word, difficult patterns are there to be heard, along with even some “wankery”, but that doesn’t seem to be the main idea. There is a great deal of strikingly simple parts too, to the extent that they are close to becoming a majority. What’s more, there are remarkably few guitar solos. As unusual as it may be for this style, the music actually raises thoughts and emotions in the listener. If technicality often involves pointless showing-off, this album has practically none of it. Every note seems to be there for a purpose, and this is underlined by the songwriting as well. Apart from some sections being just a tad too long for their own good (chorus of ‘The Universe Within’, for example), all the tracks are by far “more” than simple riff collections. Not all of them are terribly memorable, let alone catchy in any normal sense, but in my book this is not a bad thing in itself. The (mostly great) riffs are gathered up to form coherent (and mostly great) wholes - these are real songs.

There are a number of other things too on this album that are unusual for technical death metal. For one, the drums seem to take the back seat most of the time, in that the beats are not extraordinary – fast and technical, yes, but relatively straightforward as such. And no, George Kollias was no longer in the band for this one; might have something to do with it. However, this is not to say that new guy Theodorakis “can’t play” or anything like that. He performs his parts well enough, at the very least. Bassist Ilias Daras, on the other hand, does not take the back seat. Mixed regrettably low, his lines are some of the most interesting I’ve heard recently. In fact, he is the only band member who can plausibly be accused of showing off, throwing in some nice tricks and gimmicks on his instrument every now and then. On top of that, he delivers an eerie clean vocal part on ‘Lay Rotten, Never Forgotten’ very tastefully but is, again, set a bit too far back in the mix. One should also note the band’s frequent use of clean guitars and – especially – sound effects to add colour and depth to their material, these being at least partly responsible for the “atmospheric” nature of the album.

A guest appearance in the vocal department is a thing that some may find interesting: Ross Dolan of Immolation takes care of (one half of) the aforementioned chorus in ‘The Universe Within’. Not a bad job, but I was hoping for something more from him – his voice isn’t even too distinguishable, as George Antipatis’ growl sounds very much the same as his. As for Mr. Antipatis himself, his vocal parts are probably the weakest side of the album. He can growl as well as the next guy, but tends to get rather monotonous in the long run. Vocal arrangements in general could use some work too, seeing that they are quite simple rhythmically and as such, play a part in making some passages seem lengthy. Other than that, my only problem with the entire album is that there are really no tracks to “break the mold”, which means that listening to the whole thing can be a bit much. Ten tracks are certainly enough, any more would be pushing it.

What I said just above obviously means that the tracks are of very even quality, and it’s near impossible to name any superb ones – but neither are there any notable low points. Some songs do get the listener’s attention by little intricacies: ‘Noise Dreaming’ is the most awkwardly technical, while ‘Dusk’ features a clean guitar strummed in funk-influenced style, ‘Children of the Swamp’ includes passages of spoken word, etc. One thing that certainly does stand out is the production for being rather rough for the style; however, I wouldn’t say this is a bad thing at all. The rugged sound seems equally fitting no matter what is actually being played and also helps in creating the atmosphere I’m so fond of talking about.

Finally, an important note: you should definitely not be put off by Sickening Horror’s genre tag. They play technical death metal (there really isn’t a better way to describe it), but are equally far from the frenzied odd-meters of Nile than from the polished melodicism of Necrophagist, to name some well-known examples of why certain people would dismiss the entire genre. Descriptions like “a less complicated Demilich” or “a less progressive Augury” would give a better idea. Believe it or not, ‘The Dead End Experiment’ is a relatively easy album to get into and appreciate. I at least know I enjoy it very much and, honestly, so should you. Music as original as this deserves all the recognition it can get.