Type: Full-length
Label: Massacre Records
Country: Germany
Genre: Progressive Thrash Metal
-written by hells_unicorn of metal-archives.com
THE ROYAL SEAL OF GAYNESS. (SPED CLASS #5)
Not to be swayed by an inferior debut effort, purveyors of the modern method of confounding the definition of metal Enemy Of The Sun kicked off a sophomore album that sought to dethrone its predecessor in confusing the hell out of anyone unfortunate enough to hear it. If they stylistic label progressive thrash/death/black metal isn't perplexing enough for you, do not be alarmed, this band has plenty of convoluted, all over the place songs to satisfy your desire to comprehend the irrational possibility of rectangular cirlces and two-dimensional cubes. Or to put it in musical terms, let us say that a literal Frankenstein monster with a 90s Pantera head, mid-2000s Annihilator torso, Trivium arms, modern In Flames legs, and assorted extreme metal bands toes is your poison; then this is treasure to rival all of King Solomon's gold.
“Caedium” joins “Shadows” and a number of other pseudo-progressive abortions in both melodic and extreme metal circles to attempt to repackage elements of groove and nu-metal with truer versions of the art form, and producing an absolute mess in the process. While the talent of the machine gun-like, double bass drum madman Daniel Zeman and technically savvy guitarist Waldemar Sorychta is not really in question, nearly everything else put forth by them and the rest of this outfit is. Most of this album comes off as a contorted stew of technical showboating with little attentiveness to songwriting, ergo the opposite of what generally makes thrash, death, and black metal appealing, and it wanders well beyond the self-imposed limitations of Dream Theater that, while often pretty eclectic, is still digestible and enjoyable. A good analogy would be something along the lines of reciting a set of complex number groups at Guinness record speed. It might be an accomplishment, but it doesn’t pass for something worthy of recording and spending quality time alone in your car or house with.
The most off-putting part of this music is a bit difficult to nail down, and this album actually does manage to be a bit more metal oriented than its predecessor. One thing that sticks out as obvious is the annoying vocal characters put forth Jules Navari, the man of a thousand voices, all of them gimpy metalcore-like versions of the real thing. His bastardized combination of pop/punk clean singing and limp-wristed death barks over a set of hyper-redundant Jeff Waters riffs on “Chasing The Dragon” is one of the worst offenses, but also the tip of a very sizable and consistent ice berg. The mechanical nature of the music also occasional lends itself to industrial/techno interludes such as “Castaways Of The N.W.O.” and “Aimless”, the latter of which struggles to be a metal song rather than a bizarre pop tune. The only thing that really works on here to any degree is when the band goes for a direct emulation of Annihilator, which only occurs to a significant extent on “Sky Shooting Stars”. It’s not the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard, but it was done better 10 years ago on “Carnival Diablos”, and better still 21 years ago on “Alice In Hell”.
My ears are still ringing from this most unpleasant experience of an album, but I’m sure there are plenty of late teen tough guys trying to impersonate the 90s incarnation of Phil Anselmo who will try to argue the case that music like this showcases their intelligent side. While I proudly disassociate myself from this crowd, I can acknowledge that there is an audience for this rot. However, most looking for something that even attempts to resemble even modern thrash, let alone the 6 or 7 other sub-genres trying to be incorporated here, are advised to pretend that the sun has no enemies, or at least none bragging about it to the point of naming a band after the idea. An infamous reviewer of metal once said with regards to Sepultura’s abortion “Roots” (which paved the way for this) that “You can take a shit on the ceiling and call it original, but it’s still just shit”. I’d argue that “Caedium” ups the ante and makes a stalactite filled cave with similar results.
11/100
Buy here: http://www.blackscaped.de/product_info.php?ref=7&products_id=28899&affiliate_banner_id=1
No comments:
Post a Comment