GOROD — Process of a New Decline (review)

GOROD — Process of a New Decline album cover

Album · 2009 · Technical Death Metal

4/5 · 2019-03-03
siLLy puPPy

After dropping the Gorgasm moniker and becoming GOROD, this French band from Bordeaux released two albums on the Willowtip label. First a re-release from their Gorgasm days on the debut “Neurotripsticks” in 2005 and then the first bona fide new material as GOROD with “Leading Vision” the following year. The band spent a couple years crafting new material for the third album PROCESS OF A NEW DECLINE but then in 2008 drummer Sandrine Bourguignon left the band and was replaced by Samuel Santiago formerly of Next On The List and Zubrowska. This album would also be the last for vocalist Guillaume Martinot and guitarist Arnaud Pontaco.

Following the tech death metal template of Necrophagist that the band had implemented on their previous two albums, GOROD continues the chaotic mix of labyrinthine compositional styles decorated with various strains of metal including the business as usual neoclassical soloing, groove thrash chugs and the tech deathy frenetic time signature guitar riffs and jazzy drumming on steroids. While the first two albums provided some sort of melodic grounding that while meandering from one hook to another, PROCESS OF A NEW DECLINE tends to be more scattered and harder to latch onto. While the melodic hooks have certainly not been discarded, the tracks seem a tad less predictable as the band sort of zigzags through various moods and technical bombast.

While the album as a whole can seem like a display in technical futility run amok with crushing frenetic speedy riffs accompanied by pummeling blastbeats, fretless bass meltdowns and the expected emotionless death growls, the tracks redeem themselves in unexpected ways as the band drops the metal charade all together and displays various underlying influential drives whether it be Django Reinhardt gypsy swing, classically infused guitar or melodic rock elements that the band plays technical leapfrog with. The album is certainly a more difficult listen than the first two albums and i initially found the album to be an inferior third offering in comparison however the album has its addictive features as well. It’s hard to call this a song oriented album. This is geeky progressive tech death metal through and through and the band’s aim is to bedazzle and cast a spell of OMG!!!!

While perhaps not as cohesive as classic artists like Death or Atheist or as surreal as Gorguts or Portal, GOROD nevertheless cranks out some of the highest quality musical acrobatics and if this is something you crave with unrelenting aggressive performances then PROCESS OF A NEW DECLINE delivers the goods in absolutely every way. This is the kind of death metal where you actually expect it to sound totally off-kilter and unpredictable but yet somehow skirts by on some sort of subliminal flow. GOROD have become one of France’s top tech death acts and although some consider this to be one of the weaker offerings as i once did, i recommend just spending a little more time with it until you can grasp it on its own terms without the influential predilections of what came before and it more than stands up on its own two feet.