UMUR "Twisted Logic" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Polish death metal act Atrophia Red Sun. The album was released through Empire Records in July 2003. Atrophia Red Sun were formed in 1994 and have quite an interesting history, featuring many lineup changes and also changes in music style. They started out playing doom metal, but changed their style to a more progressive/melodic death metal style and finally after initially splitting up in April 2005, a new lineup was assembled in November 2005, playing purely electronic music.

On "Twisted Logic" the band play a technical/progressive death metal style featuring futuristic sounding synth effects that provide the music with a sci-fi atmosphere. The band are very well playing and deliver their performances with conviction. Lead vocalist Covan would later join fellow Polish death metal act Decapitated for the recording of their 4th full-length studio album "Organic Hallucinosis (2006)", but if you´re familiar with his vocal performance on that album, you might be surprised by how he sounds here, as he predominanly sings in a much higher pitched extreme vocal style, compared to his gruff deep growls on "Organic Hallucinosis (2006)". He also growls deeper on "Twisted Logic" though. There are also quite a few spoken parts and a few clean sung parts too. The latter are more odd than pretty though.

"Twisted Logic" is relatively well produced (the clicky bass drums, could have prospered from a more organic sound though) and as a result of the omnipresent spacey synths, it´s quite an atmospheric death metal album. It´s also relatively original and I can´t mention any specific references (and then again I do hear a couple of references to Swedish technical death metal act Theory in Practice), although Atrophia Red Sun are not completely unique sounding. The material are for the most part pretty intriguing, but not always instantly catchy. Maybe because some tracks are relatively complex and don´t necessarily feature instantly recognisable hooks. Sometimes they just seem to be composed of a lot of intriguing ideas, but not really with an overall structure in mind...

...and that´s probably the most grave issue with "Twisted Logic" and why I´m so biased about it. It features a ton of intriguing and adventurous ideas, but the album ultimately isn´t that memorable because of the way the ideas are put together. From a purely technical point of view/from a musician point of view "Twisted Logic" is still a very interesting album though and I guess a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating isn´t all wrong.

UMUR "Fears" is the debut full-length studio album by Polish death metal act Atrophia Red Sun (if you don´t count the "Painfull Love...(1995)" cassette tape as their debut. The album was released through Morbid Noizz Productions in 1997. It´s worth a mention that Atrophia Red Sun was at that point the home of later Decapitated vocalist Adrian "Covan" Kowanek.

The music on the album is melodic death metal. The band feature six members including a keyboard player (who also handles samples) and therefore the music is rather keyboard heavy and at times very atmospheric. Lead guitar themes also play a big role in the music and I actually think there are quite a few influences from an act like Amorphis in the music albeit without the ethnic/folk influence. To my ears "Fears" features a more futuristic sounding atmosphere. I hear quite a few goth/doom/death influences in the music too and acts like Cemetary and Tiamat come to mind there. The vocals alternate between intelligible growling and other less raw vocal styles.

The band are well playing and the sound production is decent. It could definitely have been stronger and more powerful, but it´s only occasionally a distraction. It´s definitely the weakest link here though. If the sound production was of better quality I would probably have given a 3.5 star (70%) rating, but as it is now a 3 star (60%) rating will do.