One of the most overbearingly stupid albums of 2011, Monumental Torment burst onto the technical death metal scene with their debut album Element Of Chaos. Ironically enough they broke up shortly afterwards, and certainly not to my dismay. Monumental Torment seems to be of that brand of technical death metal: the kind that is devoid of low-end, lacks brutality, and is filled with frenzied noodling and pointless sweeping. It's a first-class exercise in guitar douchery and the whole album feels like an attempt at appealing to teenagers with ADD rather than discriminating fans of metal.
Being overly harsh on this blue turdstain of an album? Not in the slightest. This abomination is everything wrong with technical death metal today. The electronic drumkit and the obnoxious lack of low-end on the bass and bass drum really kills any sort of aggression. Similar to Brain Drill, there's buttloads of predictable blastbeats and "off" rhythms that I'm sure the band thought were classy showcases of their supposed talent. The bassist's dry tone is really apparent in the few emotionless solos he plays. Throw in an overabundance of sweeps (even piano arpeggios!), like those found on the throwaway tracks "Lethargic Sleep" and "Mental Slavery," and suddenly Element Of Chaos feels like it should have "TRYING TOO HARD" stenciled on it in big, blocky hXc scene letters. If you're looking for virtuosic talent, look elsewhere because Element Of Chaos will beat you over the head with its blatant disregard for decent songwriting.
The good part about riff salad is that there's always a few pieces worth ingesting. This album has a few notable standout riffs, like the outro on the aforementioned "Mental Slavery." There's a few semi-interesting tapping solos, and the song "Paradox" is actually listenable. The title track is the definition of obnoxious, and the band decided to take the never-done-before path and include an ambient outro. Go figure. I guess I shouldn't have been expecting too much considering their Oppression Submission demo was pretty subpar and included the three forgettable tracks "Millenium Of Death," "Oppression Submission," and that annoying-as-sin "Lethargic Sleep." Oh well. We can't all be winners.
2.0 out of 10
You're better off listening to Archspire, or just about anything else that came out in 2011.
Tracklisting:
| 1. | Nameless One | ||
| 2. | Slaughter House | ||
| 3. | Lethargic Sleep | ||
| 4. | Mental Slavery | ||
| 5. | Oppression Submission | ||
| 6. | Seek to Destroy | ||
| 7. | Paradox | ||
| 8. | Millenium of Death | ||
| 9. | Element of Chaos | ||
| 10. | Last Voice of Future |
Ugh, yeah the song I heard was pretty bad. There's been lots of quality death metal this year though so whatever.
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