Time Signature Drowning...

Genre: brutal death metal / deathgrind

Do you know the old adage that goes like this "when pigs can fly"? Well, maybe they can't fly, but apparently, they've started to sing, and there are plenty of singing pigs on the grindcore, deathcore, deathgrind and brutal death metal scene these days. I am of course referring to the ever so popular pig squealing vocal technique, which Benighted's vocalist makes extensive use of on this album. He basically oinks and squeals his way through the album (accompanying it with metalcore screams and old fashioned growling).

I am sure that a lot of people think that pig sqeualing is oh so cool and empowering, but whenever I hear pig squaling, I always think of the anal rape scene in "Deliverance" (not a very empowering situation that), and I also generally tend to find pig squealing fucking annoying to listen to. It basically sounds stupid to me, and not at all brutal or cool (then again, how can you be brutal when you sound like Ned Beatty being anally raped by a bunch of hillbillies).

So, I have a major beef (or pork, I guess) with the vocals, which really disturb the listening experience for me.

Apart from the stupid vocals, I think that the music that this album has to offer is actually pretty cool. It is aggressive and brutal with loads of blastbeats and insanely fast riffage. The technical level is semi-high, but never too much. In addition to the many blastbeats, there are a lot of metalcore influences on this album and most of the riffage is friggin' awesome on this album (ranging from primitive grinding riffs over technical thrashy and groovy riffs to even some melodic stuff now and then). And the musicianship certainly is top notch, and the productions is well defined and crisp without being too polished.

Recommended to all riff-loving fans of brutal death metal. Had it not been for all those annying pig squals, I would have given this album 4 stars because of the awesome riffage.

J-Man Benighted's recent efforts have been gaining quite a bit of attention in extreme metal circles, and Asylum Cave is almost guaranteed to satisfy the band's faithful once again. This uber-technical blend of brutal death metal, grindcore, and metalcore is just relentless and head-crushing to say the very least. Unfortunately, many of acts in this genre don't bode extremely well with me, and Asylum Cave tends to suffer from many of my standard complaints. Although the technical capabilities of the musicians here are unbelievable, the music itself is seldom very memorable and feels somewhat generic and uninspired to these ears. I wouldn't consider Asylum Cave to be a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but I do hesitate in claiming that the album rises above the competition. This is a mixed bag of the great, the decent, and the mediocre, and the end result is an album that is recommendable, but best approached with caution.

The music here is a hybrid of brutal technical death metal, metalcore, and grindcore. Asylum Cave is somewhat unique, though, as it has a much darker atmosphere than much of the competition. Just listen to the spoken word intro to "Fritzl" to get what I mean there. The self-titled track is certainly the highlight of the album, seeing that the majority of the remaining material rests in a zone of mediocrity. One of the greatest things about Asylum Cave is the excellent production and musicianship, but that can only go so far when the album is lacking in the composition department. Still, it'd be criminal to not mention the spectacular drumming from Kevin Foley - that man is simply a monster!

Asylum Cave is a bit of a mixed bag, especially since technical brutal death metal like this rarely makes a huge impact on me. Fans of Benighted and the genre in general will want to definitely check this out even though my personal enjoyment is limited. For this good, but generally non-essential, release, this French group has earned themselves a solid 3 stars. This isn't a required purchase by any means, but I certainly wouldn't advise against it. Fans of music that is brutal as hell and still technically demanding should really dig Asylum Cave.