Nevercrown

This talented, visionary formation started quite promisingly with the 4-track EP which saw them crossing thrash and death meal on a jumpy modern base, an interesting amalgam of fast headbanging passages and complex, mechanical walkabouts the latter reminiscent of the Meshuggah and Gojira innovative robotic soundscapes.

Inertia was kind of lost by the time the album reviewed here appeared, but the guys have made sure they have caught up with every technical/progressive thrash/death metal practitioner on the circuit with this no-brainer. The abrasive shouty death metal vocals may be a pullback to some, but even their insistent vociferous presence can not possibly mar this exemplary showdown which drowns the listener in myriad perplexing time and tempo-signatures from the get-go with “Caress the Rabid”, the entangled riff-formulas wrapped in weird operatic atmosphere ala Hollenthon and Therion. Bouts of futuristic surreality graces a string of cuts ("The Murderous Fifth", "Stratageddon", "Paralytic") where Voivod’s “Negatron” meets Atheist’s “Unquestionable Presence” this hallucinogenic but utterly compelling, hyper-active on occasion as well, blend shooting the fan into an entirely new dimension before "Ship of Traitors" “betrays” the contrived setting with more linear thrashing motifs.

A respite more than welcome, especially when the intricate otherworldly fiesta goes on unabated later with the frantic unpredictable "Macrocosm of Torture" making everyone dizzy, not to mention the spacey trippy masterpiece "Hibernus" which sounds like Voivod if the Canadians were playing death metal, the shadow of the legends becoming even bigger on "There Is Nothing Without Hate First", a futuristic dissonant masterpiece carved by abrupt speedy sections. The more linear doomy dirges on "Obtest the Abjuration" could be deemed another recreational stopover before “Geist” brings all the ghosts at your door with labyrinthine riff-patterns tussling with bouts of more aggressive death/thrashing rhythms, the quieter sprawling progressivisms embedded bringing Voivod to mind again.

A great addition to the burgeoning again thrash/death metal hybrid, this opus, and respectively band, stand proud in the lofty company of other outstanding practitioners (Dimesland, Vektor, Black Fast, Droid, Torrefy, Outcast, etc.) who have also chosen the more technical/progressive side of it to explore. Unlike those, our friends here stay more on death metal ground, but this can only be beneficial in their case as the Voivod-ish element sounds even more prominent in league with the more brutal ways of expression, giving this album a fine characteristic veneer. To these ears the losing of the stiffer drier Meshuggah-esque sketches from the EP is a wise decision as their absence gives the guys’ style more flexibility and a bigger ground to expand beyond the scholastic modern metal canons.

Extreme progressive, anyone? Nah, not really; not yet anyway. This is a field where you can easily lose your crown… sorry, head, never to find it; and I’m sure these three troubadours here want to have their heads firmly on their necks... at least for another few puzzling psychedelic, spasmodically aggressive as well, outings.