FLOURISHING — The Sum of All Fossils (review)

FLOURISHING — The Sum of All Fossils album cover

Album · 2011 · Technical Death Metal

3/5 · 2022-06-06
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Metal Music Archives Reviewer's Challenge: June 2022

The Sum of All Fossils is the 2011 debut album of US dissonant death metal act Flourishing. At the time of writing this review in 2022 it remains their sole studio album due to the band's disbandment in 2014. Two of the trio remain active in the death metal scene though with a new act, Aeviterne, who dropped their first album in 2022.

Flourishing was a band sometimes associated with grindcore but on their sole full-length album The Sum of All Fossils plays firmly within the death metal camp. Theirs is a dissonant take on the genre that seems to also owe something to the realms of sludge metal and hardcore. A description of post-death metal wouldn't be worlds away either, but the name of the game is primarily atonality to produce a sound that comes off as cacophonous and chaotic.

As an album, it's not an unrewarding experience. At least, it never offers up anything that makes me think these guys don't have the chops. My trouble with it is that upon conclusion, after eight tracks and about forty-four minutes of music, I'm left with a feeling that everything I just heard just all blurs together to the point that it's an easy album to just zone out to, rather than pay attention to its details and intricacies. They are there, but it takes real effort to notice them and The Sum of All Fossils is not an album that seems to especially encourage it – or ultimately reward it. This is not a perception that has been at all helped by repeated listens to the record. Suddenly it's just done. And I feel like I blinked and missed it every single time.

Flourishing has a good sound, I'll give them that much. It's raw and dirty and will appeal to death metal fans looking to escape modern over-polished production jobs that make records sound too crisp, clean and clinical. I'll at least remember how the album sounds when I think of it. But the parts that make up its sum kind of just get lost in it all, like there's no method to the band's madness. You could play me any song from the album and even after several listens I don't feel I would stand a chance at identifying it from any other being served up here. That is not necessarily a problem in itself with extreme metal, or any genre of music for that matter, being an album's album so to speak, but here, I just don't feel we get to hear Flourishing at their full potential. And since they've now split up, I find it doubtful that we ever will. It might be worth giving Aeviterne a shot though, to hear what two of three band members are up to these days.

1 year ago
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BitterJalapeno wrote:

1 year ago

While I feel quite differently about the album, your points are well made and your review is very well written. I would urge you to give the Aeviterne album a listen at some point, it may appeal more to you with the atmospheric black metal influences. It's a contender for my AOTY so far.