I want to say that I’ve caught TBDM live a couple of times and the last time I witnessed the biggest pit I’ve ever seen in the now defunct Leeds Rios a couple of years ago. Having reviewed TBDM’s last album “Deflorate” I was suitably impressed with their brand of technical death metal with occasional bursts of modernistic core leanings and if anything that album signalled the start of the shift into pure death metal through and through.
When listening to this new album, their fifth, you are immediately consumed by the different production style and experimental nature of the song writing, such as the inclusion of strings in a couple of well chosen but appropriate songs beginning with the album opener “A Shrine To Madness”. But as you’d expect a crushing gnarly riff signals the end of said strings and into the blasting technicality we expect from TBDM. The dual vocal barrage of alternating bellows and maniacal screams from Trevor Strnad remain intact. The guitar playing, especially the leads, from Knight and Eschbach show technical adeptness and scintillating harmony. In some respects the music has taken a turn towards the more melodic Arch Enemy style of recent years, though the vocals, as said, are far more terrifying.
Into “Moonlight Equilibrium” and the leads arrive in wave after wave of Amott like panache but balanced by skull crushing riffs and drum work. The hook in “Moonlight” is brilliant, really infectious. The weirdly titled “On Stirring Seas Of Salted Blood” begins in a far more chuggier and stop-start riffing style with a pummelling double bass kick rumbling on in the background. I couldn’t help but think the riff and bass lines were similar to Death’s “Individual Thought Patterns” album and even Septic Flesh’s new masterpiece or even Morbid Angel’s new album on the song “I Am Morbid”. Typically TBDM have been compared to At The Gates and Carcass, along with Morbid Angel, which I guess is a safe bet if you want to cover all bases, but I’d say the band has carved out their own niche as the beatdown tendencies have been minimised to added effects.
The great thing about established acts like this who have honed their playing and song writing is their ability to unleash violence within their songs yet retain and harness a sense of melody and structure like on “Conspiring With The Damned” and none more so than on Carbonized In Cruciform”, which has acoustic playing and piano very subdued in the mix before a brilliant sweeping harmony riff unfolds into the blast and subsequent double bass. The style has an old 90s feel to it but shows why this band has an identity all to them. A cracking song.
A two minute interlude of manic drumming and screaming vocals precedes the demolition that is “Malenchanments Of The Necrosphere”, a slower more thoughtful but thunderous song with exquisite hooks and more of those addictive leads that are balanced with a Decapitated like double bass rhythm duel. I enjoyed “The Raven” merely for its straight ahead no nonsense head caving riffing and blasting fury as the album turns slower on “Great Burning Nullifier” which has some Immolation like solidity within the slower more pulverising rhythm. As with most modern death metal acts the closing song offers something totally different on “Blood In The Ink” as the strings reappear creating an eclectic appeal though the song still has polite violence. Given the chance I’d suggest this could be an album of the year for death metal fans if they gave it a chance, as it is really that good.
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Martin Harris
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