UMUR "Planetary Duality" is the second full-length studio album by US, California based death metal act The Faceless. The album was released through Sumerian Records in November 2008 (reissued by Lifeforce Records in February 2009). It is a self-produced release produced by guitarist/clean vocalist Micheal Keene. Drummer Lyle Cooper has been added to the lineup since the debut album "Akeldama" (2006) (which was mostly recorded using session drummers) but the rest of the lineup who recorded the debut album remains.

The music style featured on the album is technical death metal. It´s both pretty brutal and melodic at the same time. The guitar riffs are sharp and fast with lots of precise and technically complex drumming to go along. The vocals are mostly deep brutal growls (a few higher pitched screams too) but there are occasional clean/vocoder vocals featured too which is great for the variation of the album. One of my favorite features on the album are the many melodic guitar solos though. Very skillfully executed and an oasis of beauty in the midst of the brutal fast-paced and busy death metal. The vocoder parts provide the music with some futuristic/sci-fi sounding atmospheric moments which are another part of the music providing it with variation.

The album opens with the short and brutal "Prison Born" and quickly continues with the more progressive "The Ancient Covenant". That song is simply amazing technical death metal. Powerful and fast with some great guitar motifs. "Shape Shifters" is a short instrumental breather before "Coldy Calculated Design" begins and we´re once again treated with a fast-paced and technical death metal track. "Xeno Christ" is a bit different and heavier but still with faster parts. Great varied song that one. "Sons of Belial" is the song with most obvious use of clean vocals even though those vocals actually only occur twice in the song and only for a few seconds at a time. I didn´t care much for the clean vocals the first many times I listened to the album but I´ve come to appreciate them a little more with repeated listens of the album.

"Legion of the Serpent" is next and it´s the most melodic song on the album, featuring some interesting melodic breaks. It´s a great song and very important for the diversity of the album (the fast-paced neo-classical parts remind me of The Black Dahlia Murder). "Planetary Duality I : Hideous Revelation" is an intro to "Planetary Duality II : A Prophecies Fruition". The short intro track has some sci-fi samples which really creates the right atmopshere before the going into "Planetary Duality II : A Prophecies Fruition" which is another excellent technical death metal track.

The musicianship is outstanding on all posts. This is very complex and demanding music and The Faceless are a very tight playing unit. Add to that a clear, powerful, and detailed sound production and you have a high quality release on your hands. It´s like listening to the US hybrid version of Obscura and Necrophagist, although The Faceless don´t sound like a close. But there are a lot of similarities.

So upon conclusion The Faceless hit something special on "Planetary Duality". They hinted on greatness on "Akeldama", but they´ve developed their style a lot since the debut album, and by incorporating a lot of different influences and musical elements and songwriting ideas to their compositions (technical death metal, brutal death metal, progressive metal, even black metal), "Planetary Duality" is a both varied and intriguing technical death metal release from start to finish. They keep the listener on his/her toes throughout the album but still maintain a sort of accessibility that you don´t get often when listening to highly technical death metal releases. A 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is deserved.

topofsm For anyone with an eye on this album, get ready for a brutal technical experience. This album is filled with blastbeats, complex time changes, deep death growls, and technical guitars. In fact, there's so much in it, quite a bit of it will come across a bit as immemorable. Even after several listens, most of this album will seem like a blur, since there is very little in the way of melody or memorable riffs. It's still a killer technical listen though.

However, one will get to know the sounds of certain tracks. If a track could be described as memorable on this album it would probably be "The Ancient Covenant" with a killer bass intro and quick arpeggios sewn through it. Another great one is "Legion of the Serpent", which is actually quite memorable, with melodic organ parts throughout and a progressive metal melody flowing throughout.

Of course, there's Shape Shifters which is for the most part a short, eerie instrumental with strange synth/guitar. However, it doesn't really fit with rest of the album in terms of composition.

There's much more to Planetary Duality then just technical death metal too. Vocoder vocals are common, but the robotic voices don't add at all to the accessibilty of the music. If anything, it just makes it more unusual and abrasive. There are a few instances of actual singing in the album, but it sounds rather out of place. Imagine James Labrie in Nile for example, and that should give the idea. Also one can find a few interesting piano lines.

All in all, it's a great album if you want to go crazy with your metal head friends. It is one of the most brutal and technical death metal releases in the past decade, and is sure to be a good listen.