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Release Date: July 27th, 2010
Record Label: Nuclear Blast
My rating points:
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After receiving rave reviews for their sophomore album 'Diminishing Between Worlds', California death metallers Decrepit Birth are ready to release their follow-up effort and a question on every fan's mind would be, whether or not they kept up or even went further with the kind of experimentation that was evident on the previous album.
The album starts off with a Megadeth-esque guitar harmony that leads into the main chunk of '(A Departure Of The Sun) Ignite The Tesla Coil', which interestingly enough, is the longest track on the album. Normally, tracks of this nature are kept for later in the album but this only shows the fearless attitude the band is here to display. A lot is going on in this track guitar-wise. Matt Sotelo and Dan Eggers deliver blistering yet melodic guitar pieces here that leave the listener gasping for breath while the relentless vocals and drums ensure a complete knock out punch. As if all this wasn't enough, the progressive changes in tempo drive the song into further awesomeness, making you go, "Oh my fucking god!!" This is quite easily the best opening song I've heard all year long.
Even after that thunderous epic, there is no let up in the intensity as the album continues with 'Metatron'. This is more like the kind of death metal song that would make you wind-mill your head at furious pace while playing air guitar along with the riffs. It's amazing how despite the complexity in arrangement and the gazillion progressions, the song sounds like it came about very naturally. On we go to 'Resonance' next, which proves how top notch the song writing really is, as even a short-ish track like this has substantial music in it. For a relatively young band like Decrepit Birth, the beauty with which the instruments lock into each other, creating a cohesive, immaculate sound is un-fucking-believable.
Just as I was half expecting the band to run out of ideas and was getting ready to say, "This song sounds too similar to the previous ones and offers nothing new", 'Polarity' blows my fucking mind. It has diversity of elements that range from blackened thrash to outright death metal interspersed with some outrageous riffage. What else do you need from a song, really? I doubt if anyone can even handle any more within a single song. In stark contrast,'Solar Impulse' is very atmospheric and seductive, allowing you to catch your breath for a couple of minutes after the onslaught of the first four pieces of this masterful creation. 'Mirroring Dimensions' keeps the atmospheric aspect of Solar Impulse, and should provide yet more delight to music connoisseurs. The last minute or so of this one reaches such a crescendo that I am 100 per cent certain is going to create some destructive mosh pits in gigs to come, should they choose to play it live.
'A Brief Odyssey In Time' is exactly what the title suggests. I can make out the sound of fretless bass for the first time, something I really enjoy listening to. 'The Quickening Of Time' and 'Sea Of Memories' are also very short songs that sound quite different from each other. While the former has aggression aplenty, the latter is an instrumental that takes the already genius-like guitar composition to a new high. 'Symbiosis' incorporates these elements together into one and sounds as incredible as any other track on this stellar effort. The closing track 'Darkness Embrace' is another one that stands completely true to its title, giving the album a dark, evil, almost sinister ending.
The album's cover art represents the music beautifully and the production is top class, showing that the band has the right people working for them. They are on the Summer Slaughter line-up this year, which makes a stop in Hollywood this Sunday. I can't fucking wait, and the songs I would love to hear most from this album would be 'Ignite The Tesla Coil', 'Metatron', 'Polarity', 'Solar Impulse', 'The Quickening Of Time' and 'Sea of Madness'. Fuck, I would be happy with any song off of it because I honestly don't think there's a thing as 'weak song' on this.
The incredibly intricate yet unabatedly aggressive music on Decrepit Birth's 'Polarity' comprehensively blows out of the water any and every other album released this year. This is the album of the year so far. A masterpiece in the truest sense of the word, very highly recommended.
To buy the CD and for more information, check out their official myspace.
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