I'm an unashamed fanboy of Decrepit Birth, so for me this album and my ears are a match made in heaven. Look away now if you're squeamish cause this is going to be a big ol' love-fest.
The bands debut was decried by many for being too much like every other band on the Unique Leader label (or any band who sounded anything like Suffocation for that matter). For me, it was packed with wall to wall riffage and an unrelenting domineering demeanour that really made the band stand out from the rest of the clickety drummed pitbull vocalised pack. Then, a few years later in 2008 (after line up changes that saw their bassist actually leave FOR Suffocation, and another member sent to prison for unspeakable deeds), their sound on 'Diminishing Between Worlds' had morphed into something that was a lot more melodic, but still technical and awe inspiring.
With 'Polarity', they take the blueprint of album number two and run with it. The thing about Decrepit Birth is that it's not all about the technicality as it is for a lot of similarly styled bands - these guys actually have riffs and (shock) 'songs'. Yes, a technical, brutal death metal band that has songs - whatever next? If you can imagine the blasting mayhem of Suffocation, the melodious overtones of 'Sound of Perseverance' era Death, and the mind meltingly technicality of newbies such as Obscura or Gorod, you'll get some sort of idea what to expect. It will likely upset some die hards; generally even I get all uppety if a band step too far away from the old school death metal mould, but for stuff with actual star quality such as this, I can always make an exception. The elastic guitars bend and stretch, distorting and howling one moment, before sliding clinically into some weird spacey riffage that sounds like it's been written for metal in 2050, not 2010. Add alongside to this the harsh growl of the vocals over the technically perfect percussion/bass amalgamate, and you have metronome perfect technical death metal with a huge dosage of brutality.
It seems to me that Decrepit Birth are feeling more and more comfortable in their collective skins playing this style of metal. In a perfect world, it should be these guys on all the magazine covers not the likes of Gojira and other lame assed half-metal arsenuts. With this album, all being well that will indeed be the next step for these guys.
http://www.myspace.com/decrepitbirth
