Time Signature Metal grotesque...

Genre: brutal tech metal

Finnish death metallers have a treat for you in the form of their most recent album Incarnadine Revelry, which is a nice package of death metal with both death-grind and tech-death tendencies.

The opening track starts out straight on in a brutal blastbeat (after a short spoken intro in which reality is declared the worst nightmare of them all), and, if your first thought is "oh no, not another lame brutal death metal band", you will soon learn that this is indeed not another lame brutal death metal band. Pyuria's music strikes me as being considerably multifaceted, and, although brutality is a ubiquitous feature on the album, the listener is also treated to a number of other elements. You will learn this lesson already in 'Eradicate the Parasite' which takes you through a number of different grooves, and 'Flesh Grotesque' even has a bit of a rock feel to it. Speaking of rock, a funny detail, and I do not know if this is a deliberate move from Pyuria, but th first section of 'Eradicate the Parasites' sounds suspiciously much like Elvis Presley's 'Jailhouse Rock' (if this is indeed a deliberate move from Pyuria, then I think it is nothing less than a stroke of genius). A song like 'Skeletonized' features several moshing-friendly heavy breakdowns and passages, while 'I Am Pain', 'The Enemy' and 'The Dead Will Devour Us All' are brutal tech death metal tracks that can reach the same level of intensity that characterizes some of Suffocation's classic tracks.

Every song on the album contains a myriad of riffs and shifts and the level of technicality is definitely admirable, although Pyuria, thankfully, never go overboard into the ocean of unbearably over the top tech death metal. The title track balances on the edge, though, but the schizophrenic twist that all its many changes generate has a positive effect in creating a real sense of intensity, as the listener is constantly anticipating a total musical collapse which never occurs. One thing that I really like is the big, fat sound sound of the bass which, placed right in the middle, provides the bottom for the guitars, showing how important the bass actually is in death metal. Oh, and the album is happily free from those awful pig screams, as Matti Liuke focuses of guttural growls and a couple of screams every now and then.

Pyuria made a solid and quite original death metal release in the form of Incaranadine Revelry which should appeal to fans of Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Aborted and the like.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)