The Partisan Turbine

This seems like probably some of the heaviest music I can think of, and it certainly isn't the easiest to listen to in terms of its heaviness. There is a lot of decent stuff in this album that will keep the listener to want to hear more, but it gets boring and/or awkward at different points in each track. This has a very heavy lean towards a deathcore sound like Molotov Solution and a slam death sound like Devourment. This album is however more technical than Devourment, and heavier in content than Molotov Solution which isn't a band I would consider truly deathcore all the way through. The Partisan Turbine also shows a lean towards a grindcore sound combined with the other elements.

This album is very heavy in terms of instrumentation with the guitars and vocals being highest in the production, and the bass and drumming being very low in the production with the latter being almost inaudible at times. The guitarists play some very crushing, detuned riffs which tend to be very power chord based. You hear a lot of deathcore and brutal death metal oriented riffs that churn and weave around in a rather simplistic manner, but that simplicity gets cut down when the band starts playing a more death/grind oriented sound, with heavy tremolo riffs. There is a very noticeable hardcore influence in the guitars with open note chords being played, and there is a flavorful use of breakdowns here, but it tends towards a much more technical sound than your average deathcore act. The guitar solos presented are quite brutal and difficult to understand, they sound rather sloppy and don't compliment the music well. The vocalist utilizes a range of vocals, but predominately utilizes low guttural exhale growls. He is quite versatile in the kinds of growls he uses, and makes a more black metal oriented scream which you can hear often in different grindcore bands. He utilizes inhales and guttural inhales at different points as well, and they're subsequently the most boring parts in terms of the sound quality combined with the guitars and the almost indistinguishable drumming. The drumming... It's very difficult to hear, you have to pay close attention the hear the blast beats and it sounds like a lot of filler, like the drummer is simply just being a metronome for this guitar heavy production. The drummer plays some tasteful patterns when they can be made sense of. It is rather sad in all honesty that the bass and drumming is very low and difficult to distinguish on this album.

It seems like the band decided to focus solely on guitar work and vocals on this album because those are the best qualities this album presents. Both are quite varied and entertaining, yet both get rather boring on occasion. They should really have allowed the drummer and bassist shine, it would have added that extra punch this album needs. Despite the good qualities presented in the top heavy production, it's weight makes it fall directly on it's face and it often fails to be entertaining because its rather monotonous with the focus on power chord riffings like slams. If you're looking for a solid brutal death metal album you're going to be bored out of your mind with this, but if you're into slam and core music you'll probably enjoy this. I certainly found it rather lacking and awkward in its content, but I wouldn't say I hate it, its definitely worth listening to.

The Partisan Turbine are an interesting band; placing the crunching breakdowns of the current deathcore wave amongst music that sounds taken from a faster Circle of Dead Children or Devourment. They're not just about mosh-candy for the scenesters; solos, artillery-like drumming and disturbing vocals play a much bigger role than obligatory beatdowns and gang vocals. Imagine a Waking The Cadaver that doesn't utterly shit all over everything that makes death metal and deathcore good, or a Misericordiam with guitars you can hear. I loved their EP, Surgical Assault, for all these reasons. On top of this, it was the first time I ever heard pig squeals and low inhales genuinely work and actively compliment the music - in being able to perform a much higher standard of inhale, the vocalist provided a performance that sounded much like the monster from every nightmare H.P. Lovecraft ever had.

However, there are many of you who don't like pig squeals, and you'll be glad to know that for this, their full-length, they've been reigned in - noticably, since every song from the EP except Vast Illumination returns. However, these remade tracks sound strange with more traditional death metal vocals - everything sounds less impenetrably brutal than the old versions. The vocals are still great, the instrumentals are superb, but the more generic death growls just don't work as well - in fact the whole vocal performance isn't as good. "Inertia", my first and favourite TPT song, has never sounded as flat and (relatively) un-brutal.

It doesn't help that the production is appalling. The EP was produced very well, but here everything sounds muffled and fuzzy. Music like this, I've always felt, should be produced to be as crystal clear as possible, like the band is playing right into your bleeding eardrums. Admittedly the guitars have been raised in the mix, the only flaw with the EP, but the lack of sound quality detracts overall.

However, the music overall is as great as it was in the EP; the drums - the driving element of the music - are astonishing, with gravity blasts belted out effortlessly, the guitars combine (now audible) downtuned churning and scything solos, the bass is...genuinely there at times...and the vocals, while not as exemplary as on the EP, are more than functional. It's a good solid, admittedly CoDC-copying album - but I'd recommend the EP more.