Time Signature Paranoia...

Genre: tech death metal

Megalomania 999 described themselves as just a bunch of guys who like to drink beer and play rock 'n' roll. Well, out of tha constellation came two full-length releases and a couple of EPs, "Rebirth", perhaps ironically, being their last release before they split up. Rumor has it that the band had informally already split up but recorded and released "Rebirth" to get their last material out there to the rock lovin' public.

"Rebirth" is essentially a technical death metal release with elements from hardcore/metalcore and thrash metal. Consequently, there is a lot of musical variation on this album, but at the same time there is a certain sense of coherence to the whole album, which, I must say, sometimes generates a feeling of monotony in the listener, such that one sometimes loses track of which song one is listening to.

But, let's focus on the variation.

The first track "Ode to the Wretched" is an all out brutal death metal track with some insanely fast blastbeats and traditional death metal riffage, spiced up by a strange oppressive and downtempo bridge, and also an uptempo part which seems to combine death metal with something in between rock n roll and surf rock. "Michel de Notre Dame" starts out a brutal death metal song, too, but the riffage is more thrashy, and eventually the song morphs into a more thrashy affair with a lot of strange riffs and some groovy sections. There are also plenty of blastbeats in this song, which contribute to the brutal death metal feel. "Drowned in Confusion" is a more groovy affair based on a brilliant guitar riff, while "Paranoia Part 1" is more of a melodic track with a galloping feel to it and also some Pantera-like groovy parts. "Proportions" also combines brutal death metal with more groovy metal and there are also some sludgecore elements in this track. "Suburbia" is the weirdest, but also the coolest, track on this album. It is pretty avant-garde and sounds like a satanic circus song. There are some weird parts in this song, to be sure. "Paranoia Part 2" combines thrash metal and blackened death metal into an, at times, messy flurry of metal attacks, which the last track is a heavy and groovy track with some blackened parts too.

There is no doubt that the Megalomania guys are very gifted musicians. The guitar work on this album, especially the solos, is impressive, and the drummer is very skilled. That being said, I think that there are way too many blastbeast on this album - and there are a lot of blasting parts where blastbeats do not even fit in.

I think that fans of technical death metal and brutal death metal would like this album, and blastbeat lovers will totally adore it.

And if yo'd like more of this type of music, keep an eye on Mezmerizer, which is a band formed by some of the former members of Megalomania, whose style is equally technical and progressive death metal. Other members of the band joined forces with ex-members of Stilhed and formed The Shitblizzards, which is musically very different from Megalomania 999 and Mezmerizer.