Spinning Blades, scattered debris, severed limbs, decapitation, and general mayhem ensued.
The soundtrack to this terror?
Project: Failing Flesh as I mow my lawn :)
Well, if you were an insect in the path of a lawn tractor that's how you'd describe it I think. Especially if the guy driving that tractor had the same dazed look in his eyes that I did as I listened to one of the best extreme metal albums ever!
Project: Failing Flesh or P:FF, as I will further refer to them, have indeed created an album that will serve as a benchmark in extreme metal. For one, these guys don't have a record contract and two, there is only three of them. Sure there are other three piece outfits out there but none of them have achieved so much as these guys have on this album. Let's start with a name that is very recognizable in metal. The former
Voivod throat, Mr. Eric Forrest, he is the best ever here. Like he was made for this band. Then you have Tim Gutierrez and Kevin131. Eric being the vocalist and Tim and Kevin131 are listed as "instruments". Let me say that "instruments" means Guitars, Bass, Drums and Keyboards, Violins, Cello and who knows what else.
If that weren't enough, and it is, Kevin131 recorded and engineered it and P:FF produced it. No label money, no deal at all. It doesn't hurt that Kevin131 has his own studio with which he makes a living, but that aside, it is amazing that these guys have put a musically superior and sonically superior album out on their own. When I say sonically superior, I'm talking as good if not better than the famed Fredrik Nordstrom, Studio Fredman stuff. Calling themselves "scientists" in the bio I received is an apt description of the precise metal on this album. As if a mad scientist formulated these songs from complex chemical structures. Calling all metal labels....send your bands to Kevin131 for recording. He's good, damn good. O.K well now that I have tried and hopefully succeeded in peaking your interest. Let me get to the album for you.
I don't normally take albums in a track by track manner. I feel I must on this album because the songs have so many different influences popping up.
"A Beautiful Sickness": Title track and the song that got me interested in the first place. Kicks off with a marching snare drum pattern tightly repeated with rhythm guitars blazing and a nice melody guitar line on top of it. Then it brakes right into a chugging riff where Eric begins his dark emoting vocal, then to a little taste of a
Voivodian pre-chorus. Into a church organ layered chorus where Eric breaks out his clean vocals. One of the few times he does a clean vocal, and I hope on the next album he will do more because it is real tight! Did I mention this tune was pretty quick in tempo? No...... well it is
.
"Planet Dead": One of my favorites on the album. Long sustaining heavy chords pound over a tumbling tom tom rhythm, then the guitars sync up to the tom tom rhythm and enter the keyboards with a sweet melody over the top of it. Intensity rises with the addition of a drum corp sounding tom rhythm. Reminds me of the drum line in high school band when they solo and you feel that raw drum power in your gut. They have captured it on this tune and it gives the music an unheard of intensity. There is some cello at the front of the song too. Eric sings it raw and heavy all the way through. Pure heavy metal thundering on this one!
"9mm Movie": Starts off slow and heavy. Almost doom sounding. Not long before Eric Starts in. Continues at the same slow pace, but this is how the song retains it power over the dark lyrics. Violins and cello return in the middle section. Violin performs a twisted screechy solo that gives the song a horror movie, creepy feeling. As the song proceeds to the end the violins get more twisted and dissonant until the song fades out.
"Scene Of The Crime": Cool sample of some weird keyboard type effect at the front. Drums, guitar, and bass perform another display of perfectly synced timing in a marching snare pump fashion. Eric in full growl. This song hits on some progressive elements. Eric does a short clean vocal but it has a tremelo effect on it. The middle section breaks down to a slow heavier pace with some melody guitars thrown on top. Keys always pounding out a haunting rhythm in the background. Then back into the main guitar riffs/verses until the bad boy ends as heavy as it started.
"Entrance Wound": Fast and belligerent start, into a tom tom rumble again, then into a disjointed, almost progressive drum pattern followed by a strange chorus with piano banging out behind the heavy guitars and drums. Obsessive double bass pattern cranks out behind a very VoiVodian vocal melody, sounding like Snake (VoiVod) here. Then it's gets more VoiVodian when the guitar takes a page from Piggy's (also VoiVod) book on odd chords. Another favorite track here. Eric era VoiVod fans will love this one!
"Long Silent Voices": One of the band trademarks is how the rhythm sections are tightly synced. This song starts off that way but then breaks into some sustaining chord heaviness. Then a cool as crap break down where a piano plays in the gaps between a chugging synced rhythm. In the middle the songs falls into a beautiful but haunting orchestra section, slow and brooding. Then back into the former sections until it closes with a bang.
"Dementia Pugilistica": Black metal speed and sound from the start but quickly goes to the P:FF trademark stylings. Some very technical riffing on them all but this one is really super tight. Pretty straightforward extreme metal but full of hooks. very memorable!
"Taste Of The Lie": Don't know if you have ever heard of an old band called Circle Of Dust. This sounds like them. Heavy, tech, industrial metal. Drum machine kicking some odd rhythms and fills all over it with pops and squeaks of machine like samples happening too. Detuned grunge madness with Eric growling like a mad man! lovely! Don't let the ending effect freak you out. Your stereo is not falling apart.....I thought my batteries were dying in my CD player when I heard it. Everything starts to fuzz out like your speakers are blown, but they're not.......so don't send it back to them thinking there is something wrong with the disc...it is intentional.
"Highwire Act":
Slayer like beginning. Then it pops into recent
Dimmu Borgir speed for a few bars then into a break down of a Bolt Thrower type groove metal. At this point I flip the lawn tractor into 5th gear and start bobbing my head like a white boy at a Snoop Dog concert. This track has soul man. Groove-a-liscious! Hit that
Dimmu Borgir speed for another round then it goes into a doom metal slow break down at which it ends.
"Warhead": Classic
Venom song covered here. Done up P:FF style. Too bad
Venom didn't have access to the recording sound these guys have. This is heavy man....HEAVY!
Venom tribute album compilers should put this one on top of the list. excellent.
A quick note on the lyrics: I will tell you there are no cuss words but other than that I don't generally comment on lyrics. Lyrics are usually subjective unless the song is about a particular story or person. So here is the old rule of read them and take what you want from them. I can't tell you what they mean. That's why I usually don't mention lyrics in my reviews, in case you've noticed.
Ok, that's my feeble breakdown attempt of the album. Now pop on over to
www.projectfailingflesh.com and download a couple of their MP3's, read some stuff about them and buy the disc if you want to. They only made 300 copies so act quick. Once they sign a deal they will re-issue it with different artwork. So the first 300 will be collectors editions of a band that will certainly go far and dare I say bring hope to the American metal masses who are sending their cash over to Sweden for the latest and greatest bands. Well save that cash and send it to good ole Virginia, you won't regret it. Check out my
interview with Tim Gutierrez too!
Written by
David Thursday, August 14, 2003
Show all reviews by DavidRatingsDavid: 9.5/10Members: No members have rated this album yet.
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