Coordinated Mutilation

Frankly, I'm shit at spotting influences and/or blatant ripp-offs, which, with the lack of novelty of most bands/records floated my way by Birkir, our pre-eminent blog editor, generally gives me a hard fucking time reviewing stuff for this site. Anywho, it took me far too long to spot where VOLTURYON (a sure sign we’re fast running out of viable band names) are coming from.

But then it struck me the album titled should have tipped me off); Fucking Cannibal Corpse! And man do I hate Cannibal Corpse. Obviously, if your content to sound like someone else, why not make it the best selling act in your genre? The aspect that most hits home with Cannibal Corpse is the vocals, the over-reliance on that simple beat, you know the one I´m talking about, the one that´s neither fast nor slow and employs just on kicker (I´m sure our editor/ drummer can name it for us in an editors note), and the riffs with the screechy endings, oh, and the gore/violence themed song titles (and there are even solos).

Not to say that VOLTURYON is a complete ripp-off. For one, the drumming is more creative and the song structures more technical and diverse, but not nearly up to par with what most modern Death Metal bands aspire to. Which in and of itself is a nice point of differentiation in this day and age. Yes, this is passable, even enjoyable, but far from thinking outside the box like Cephalic Carnage/latter day Gorguts or ridiculously relentless like Origin(Angelcorpse/Krisiun. What this is is middle of the road, dare I say it, “easy listening” old school Death Metal, with a little modern twist to keep the kids interested, even if it is for just a minute. - Bogi Bjarnason

Originally published February 13, 2011 on http://www.halifaxcollect.blogspot.com