adg211288 Having brought in new guitarist Sam Kirsch to replace the departed Ben Durgin, the US technical brutal death metal act Abnormality is back on the metal scene with their second full-length album Mechanisms of Omniscience (2016), following on from Contaminating the Hive Mind (2012). And with it they seem ready to kick some arses into next week.

The album features mostly short and to the point kind of tracks with a couple of instrumental pieces to break it up a bit. The noted exceptions on length are Vigilant Ignorance and Consuming Infinity at just past the six minute mark and a little shy of it respectively - in themselves not long by metal standards but most of the tracks Abnormality have written here get their job done and are over before the four minute mark, which is generally what you want to hear with this sort of style as nothing has a chance to outstay its welcome. The musicians are a tight unit and their technically well-played brutal death metal hits the spot for me a bit better than some other similar bands I've reviewed, but does also stumble upon the usual issues that I have with this kind of album (or even death metal albums in general). Even after several listens I don't find the individual songs to be all that memorable and while the vocals of Mallika Sundaramurthy serve the music well I find her growls pretty unintelligible, which doesn't help with the former point about memorability.

I'm sure that fans of brutal death metal will find something to enjoy on Mechanisms of Omniscience. The band have a decent sound, but for me everything ultimately falls a bit flat due to the fact that there isn't really anything about the album that stays with me for long upon its conclusion, though in its defence it does keep my attention on it throughout.