There's something inhuman and cold at the heart of space, -273 degrees cold, and the Sequence of Prime are determined to bring it to our awareness. Or us to its...
The Sequence Of Prime are a one man project brought to ignition by US multi-instrumentalist Brandon Duncan (who also operates as Inchoate) and its a relentless roll of industrial death metal, blackened by space and lurching into grindcore at turns with tortured and ranting screams dragged with it, offering lyrics of a chaotic and malevolent universe forever ready to tear huge chunks out of the Earth, or of self-inflicted planetary horrors. Virion is their second full length and I guess you could take flashes of Red Harvest or Aborym or Anaal Nathrakh as vague starting points before launch because you'll need something to grab a hold of on the way..
The first song 'Enlightenment' hammers in, letting you know what you're in for: Steel hard, clinical drums and some technical death metal, almost thrashing, riffs of the straight to the skull variety and a voice teetering on Even horizon insanity. Shorn of any 'widdly' bits it is a punishing opener.
The riffs are excellent; moving from clinical meat hooks crusted with rust and venom to a real, unsettling groove that gouges out an identity for each individual song in this album. There is no fat here, no flash wizardry that others use to cover cracks in the inspiration leaking madly into a vacuum. Instead there is a solid, almost puritanical bent to the structure and a mean intent to the vision.
If song titles like Cenozoic Anoxia sound brain melting, the lyrics are less so, being bleak but to the point, accessible but not weak. And 'Nuclear Winter' is a reminder that a certain threat is still here and a new, unpredictable form which is a neat juxtaposition of old thrash metal subjects and modern world threats that works well.
Halfway in is a surprise named 'Icosahedron'; a two minute drum track that works! There's something unexpectedly organic about it. It knocks your centre of gravity hard enough for the slow intro to 'Particulate Matter', and the faster riffs coming close behind, to be shockingly bitter and Duncan spits forth obtuse physics from within the cosmic storm that leave no shred of hope.
For the first few notes, the deceptively gently named 'Dandelions In Spring' sounds in danger of going the classic rock root until the space-flight speed, black hole dense riff kicks in with an evil glee and thrashes at a tale of retroviruses and epidemics, before 'Ecophagy' goes full tilt grindcore.
With a final reminder that They Are Watching Us And Are Hungry in 'Extremophile', the Sequence Of Prime leave us with the well named 'Compression' which begins softly before cranking up speed and pressure by relentless degrees which leaves nothing behind but the singularity.
For something on the PC screen, that might promises little more than number crunching, binary heaviness and monotony, instead The Sequence Of Prime fires up the drives and takes you screaming into a cold unhinged cosmos of despair. And I can't wait for the next flight. A genuine surprise and a real work of interest.
If all that sounds even remotely interesting then you've no excuse for not checking it out; head over to their website for the free download.
http://www.thesequenceofprime.com
http://www.myspace.com/thesequenceofprime
