Disfiguring The Goddess - Sleeper

Why am I reviewing Disfiguring The Goddess? I feel like I should at least look into one of the posterchilds of wigger pseudo-slam. I mean slams are fun, so maybe Big Chocolate can bring them to the masses with catchy hooks and hi-fi production.

 

It was an obvious mistake to bother with Sleeper. There's not much in the way of slams here. Hell there's not much in the way of music here. It's just the same shitty "djent" monotones played over one of the worst sounding drum machines ever with a no-balls, no-bass production. That's not to mention the most humorous aspect of the album: the synthesizer.

So how can I make this more fun? Let's do a track by track breakdown (pun intended) of Big Chocolate's latest fecal disgorgement.

Opener "Sleeper" begins with some absolutely forgettable riffage and cupped-microphone vocals done by none other than everyone's favorite dubstep-producing asshole. On a sidenote I'm sure he's a nice guy. I mean he did work on Burning The Masses, but honestly I have to say I prefer their debut that I was gifted over their material with him. Anyway as "Sleeper" drags it's self-deprecating carcass along, Chocolate breaks out the synthesizer to remind us that his music can get worse, and it's literally one of the most fruity and cheesy sounding things ever. I literally couldn't stop laughing at the synth melody that becomes the focal point of the track.

"Queen Kingdom," the unfortunate sequel to "Sleeper" is a disappointment. Too many djent tones, too little synthesizer. Zero laughs out of ten. Perhaps one of the few listenable tracks on the album if you can muster the strength to handle the monotone guitarwork. I think you'd have to be deaf though.

"Daughter of Depths" is a much more engrossing track. The synth line that develops out of the breakdown at 1:44 sounds like a Syfy channel original horror movie track. Eventually the track goes to revisit this very developed and very nuanced melody, but only after a bunch of palm-muting bass drops and an odd turntable-esque sound.

"Lady Epicenter" is a completely unmemorable track save for the last forty-five seconds where ridiculous noodling on the synthesizer takes over from the breakdown. It sounds like Chocolate's playing minor arpeggios on a Casio keyboard. I wouldn't be surprised if that's actually what he's doing. Keep it up guy, it's making me laugh.

Now "Vines Of Aftermath" isn't entirely bad. You get some harmonics and an actual melody! It might be fleeting, but it is there right before another breakdown that eventually segways into a synthesizer segment. It crops up near the end of the track too. Definitely the highlight of the album from a musical perspective, and one that I'm sure many fans will be listening to for years to come.

"Mountain" is dumb but at some points it reminds me of other genre greats like Dimmu Borgir. Yeah, silly "evil" symphonic metal is exactly what slam should sound like. "Ocean Tomb" is just a djent-static-djent-borefest. Nothing to hear there.

I feel like my scale can't do this comedy masterpiece justice. Normally I would say that an album of this caliber is a ten out of ten, but this album transcends the scale entirely, hitting an eleven out of ten.

1.0 out of 10

Oops I think I missed a 1 there. Oh well.

Tracklisting:

1. Sleeper

2. Queen Kingdom

3. Daughter of Depths

4. Lady Epicenter
5. Vines of Aftermath
6. Mountain
7. Ocean Tomb

Laugh on.

Unexpect - Fables Of the Sleepless Empire

This album screams cheese. If you enjoy this stuff then I don't know whether to be sorry for trashing it or sorry for you,

I've outgrown this stuff. I might've enjoyed this years ago, but Unexpect's Fables Of The Sleepless Empire is everything I absolutely hate about flamboyant, noodling "progressive" metal. The band's juvenile attempts at being "avant-garde" come off as half-baked and cheesy. Symphonic elements - violins, operatic female vocals, neo-classical guitars, and some of the most fruity keyboards this side of Cradle Of Filth - rule Fables Of The Sleepless Empire from beginning to end. There was a time where I thought Kalisia was tolerable, and Persefone was pretty badass, but now is not that time.

As long as you understand that, you can go ahead and dismiss (or applaud) the rest of this review.

Structurally speaking, most of these songs are actually fairly predictable in that they have different movements that build to a particular climax. That's about all they have going for themselves though. Otherwise you're subject to a forgettable and disorganized blur of arpeggiations emanating from both guitar and keyboard. Talented but trite female vocals really dampen the excitement offered by the flurry of instruments. Add some forced, high-pitched harsh vocals underneath the female lead and you have a recipe for me getting a headache. This headache peaked during the first half of noodle-synthfest "Mechanical Phoenix" and didn't go away until I walked away from my damn speakers.

Now that I think about it, my hatred for this album - piss poor songwriting aside - might be due to it not being "heavy." I've heard acoustic folk albums heavier than this. Atmospherically speaking Fables Of The Sleepless Empire falls flat on its face. Why? Because there isn't any atmosphere. Unexpect even manages to botch the atmosphere in longer tracks where they have time to build like "Unfed Pendulum," and did I just hear fucking palm-muting? Seriously that was some of the weakest palm-muting I've ever heard this side of newer Whitechapel. This is largely because of the no bass, ultra compressed production values present throughout the album. The snare sounds flat and the pillow bass drum is insanely aggravating. There's no escaping them either, except for when this shit stops spinning.

At least the musicians have a degree of talent. It's just a shame they decided to waste it on this pretentious, musically inept album.

3.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	Unsolved Ideas of a Distorted Guest
2.	Words
3.	Orange Vigilantes
4.	Mechanical Phoenix
5.	The Quantum Symphony
6.	Unfed Pendulum
7.	In the Mind of the Last Whale
8.	Silence this Parasite
9.	A Fading Stance
10.	When the Joyful Dead Are Dancing
11.	Until Yet a Few More Deaths Do Us Part

Septicflesh - The Great Mass

Also known as Septic Flesh's newest release. I believe their name is now one word too, so I'll be calling them Septicflesh from now on.

The Great Mass released this year to a surprisingly warm critical reception. Fans of the band seem to be a bit more conflicted. Some cry "Masterpiece" while others condemn it for losing the death metal element that made the band great. However for me, just one word comes to mind upon listening to The Great Mass: mediocrity.

Here you have a Septicflesh that, similarly to the oft-compared to Opeth (never got those comparisons, but whatever), doesn't know where to go. Septicflesh is a band that thrives on melody and a degree of subtlety that's always been about balancing the more flamboyant symphonic aspect with the thick, death metal guitars. Sumerian Daemons was a prime example of this balance in my opinion. However this album throws that balance way off, and shows Septicflesh falling from the tightrope into a crocodile-filled pit where the second group of fans are the crocodiles unwilling to accept the change.

I'm somewhere in the middle on this album. I applaud Septicflesh for trying to find their niche as a symphonic "death" metal band, but the symphonic elements on this album are just TOO much. They remind me of the worst parts of Dimmu Borgir and Cradle Of Filth, just with deeper vocals and slightly heavier guitars. The fruity symphonic elements annihilate the pounding drums and riffs that occasionally reach prominence on tracks like "Rising" and "Five-Pointed Star." However the rest of the tracks, like "Pyramid God" and "A Great Mass Of Death" are overwhelmingly symphonic. Apparently they thought power metal and forgettable symphonics would mix well on "Therianthropy" but it just makes me snarf. At least all the symphonic elements sound like they were performed by a real orchestra. It might be because they actually were. It's cool that they got those guys from Communion to work with them again.

Now there aren't many bands that can pull off symphonic death metal. It's a subgenre that frankly shouldn't exist, and even though Septicflesh has teetered on the brink of "fruitality" for awhile, this is the album that really pushed them over the edge.

5.0 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	The Vampire From Nazareth
2.	A Great Mass of Death
3.	Pyramid God
4.	Five-Pointed Star
5.	Oceans of Grey
6.	The Undead Keep Dreaming
7.	Rising
8.	Apocalypse
9.	Mad Architect
10.	Therianthropy