Rings of Saturn - Godless Times (USA-CA, 2014)
Say what you will about aliencore being a gimmick (yeah fair) or Lucas Mann being a jerk (by all accounts that’s true); this album (clearly their strongest) is solid technical deathcore.
Bonus: managed one more “Of” this week!
This is one of those times where I felt the need comment. First, thanks for the post, I fucking love the metal scene across lemmy. Keeps me finding new music I’d never find on my own.
But the particular song linked didn’t work for me. The vocals and the rest didn’t have the right balance. It’s kinda like someone wearing a red plaid tuxedo with a neon paisley cummerbund. It’s one of the reasons actual tech death is my least listened sub genres, despite it having some of the fucking best instrument playing in metal overall.
Not every screamer or growler is going to match the rest of the music every time unless you limit the instruments. I dig dissonance, and I dig contrast, but there has to be balance to it, or it falls flat for me, and that’s where this song is. Fucking awesome instrumentation, and fucking brilliant vocals. They just don’t work together to convey a coherent musical whole.
You see what I’m getting at? It’s one of those things where I’m really glad I heard it, but I didn’t really like it overall, no matter how well the band members did their jobs.
I should have known RoS would elicit some opinions, ha. But yeah I know exactly what you mean! I frequently have a similar reaction to some recommended release, where all the members are playing the hell out of their parts, but some stylistic choice just isn’t right for me. Much like for you it’s the balance/fit, I’ll be weirded out by the mix, or an unusual vocal style (see Spite as a deathcore example), or OSDM drums that keep distracting from everything else.
Thanks for chiming in! This makes me curious now, especially since tech death is a less-listened subgenre for you: what are some of your AOTY picks? One of my favorite things about metal communities is getting fresh input from fans with a different perspective than me, I tend to end up with discoveries I wouldn’t have made on my own.
Will I get moshed on if I recommend Dying Fetus’ newest? Make them beg for death. I know a lot of people don’t really think of them as technical, but I think they fit, and that album is balls out.
Xoth, Ecogalactic is pretty damn tight as well, imo. Again, though, not always seen as techdeath, since they’re a bit thrashier.
Ah I really gotta give the new Dying Fetus another shot. It didn’t resonate on first listen, but everyone seems to love it.
But Xoth absolutely slaps, that’s making my top 10 for sure. Thrash-influenced death can be a lot of fun.
I just realized I forgot what is my favorite album of the year, from any genre.
Kataklysm dropped Goliath this August. I’m fucking obsessed with the album. Enough so that I’m kinda amazed I didn’t mention it before. I guess I was just thinking along the tech and aliencore style of things, and kataklysm is more melodeath overall.
But, if you haven’t heard it, it’s a must listen. Bringer of vengeance is my favorite track on it.
Yeah! I’m not as familiar with melodeath, but that one definitely caught my attention, I just haven’t spent as much quality time with it as others. I’m hoping that’ll help expand my horizons into melodic the way Ophidian I did with TDM coming from deathcore.
That’s pretty much exactly how I feel about Spiral Architect. Everyone does their own thing amazingly, but it just doesn’t work together as a whole:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=M7ZipHFZTaY
Blotted Science is pretty much the same thing, but done right. Everything’s technical, but grooves nicely together
That’s some good stuff right there :)
It brings to mind something I noticed recently, after finally having jazz “click” for me in a way I enjoy. A lot of tech and prog metal is essentially jazz with more amplification. Blotted science is pretty much jazz to my ear. And spiral architect, from the little bit I just heard, are drawing heavily on that too, just not as successfully. It’s a bunch of really talented players that aren’t following the same path to a song. Very interesting intellectually, but it isn’t enjoyable in the same way blotted science is.