Cephalic Carnage is set to unleash its latest collection of extreme metal upon an unsuspecting world. For this listener it is a first experience, and let me say that Xenosapien floored me. It is an insanely brutal, technically precise, experiment in extreme death metal, I think. Once again, the labels trip me up and I am unsure what subgenre(s) this belongs to, so I make my best guess, making some up along the way, and hope that it works towards relaying what it is that is rattling around inside my head. I was unsure what to expect, though the word "carnage" led me to believe it would be brutal. What I got was brutal, but it was also so much more than that.The first thing I had to figure out is what is meant by Cephalic Carnage? Beyond how I am supposed to pronounce that word. I soon discovered that cephalic means "of or pertaining to the head." So, I can extrapolate that the name means something along the lines of "slaughtering the head." With that now in my head, it makes perfect sense, it is a good way to describe the aural assault that they led on my ear drums.
The second thing I had to figure out is why have I never heard of them before? Sure, there are a lot of good bands that I would probably love that I have never heard, and likely never will. You know, there is only so much time that I can allot to my forays into the musical world. I will just have to be thankful for the ones that due make it to the area of my ears. Honestly though, I am surprised no one mentioned these guys to me before, I mean they do already have three albums out on Relpase in the past 6-7 years, and they have toured with a number of bands I like, including Shadows Fall and Mastodon. Whatever, they are here now, and they are an impressive quintet.
Now, the band has come up with their own label for their music, which is just as good, if not better, than anything I could have made up for them. They describe their music as Rocky Mountain HydroGrind. I am not sure what that means, but then again, I have no idea how to wrap a label around this music which has elements of death, grind, jazz fusion, metal spasms and warped and twisted them into something that is challenging, unique, and just downright impressive.Xenosapien opens with the insane "Endless Cycle of Violence." The song opens with some quietly building electric string sound, not sure how to describe it , before exploding in an orgy of technical precision with a guttural death voice coming in amid the organized chaos. What really grabbed me right out of the gate were the wild, all over the place drums, ever moving the song forward while never seeming to repeat itself. This is something that would repeat itself over the course of the album. Over that was the sound of twin guitars chugging, churning, swirling, and squealing away, playing along the edge of a precipice, yet never falling over into the black abyss. OK, I was officially sucked in.
How do you follow that exercise in experimentation? How about a speedy technical freakout? The song is called "Divination & Volition" and it is a bit more reigned in than the opener, but not by much. Next is a double bass driven crunch track known as "Molting," which features some interesting note picking interspersed among the heavy death riffs. The fourth track starts with a solo bass followed by an explosion of black metal fury in a song titled "Touched by an Angel."
Now, I m not going to take you through the album, that would be giving you to much to go on. There is just way too much to explore here, especially for those of you who are, like me, new to the experience of Cephalic Carnage. Though I will mention two more excellent cuts. One is titled "G.lobal O.verhaul D.evice," an epic track of grind and doom metal that moves and surges through the darkness. Lastly there is the short thrashy track with the best title on the disk "Let Them Hate So Long As They Fear," it barely crosses the minute mark, but that is more than it needs to deliver its power.
John Merryman's drumming is insane, he is all over the kit, perfect timing, ingenius fills and rolls, all I can say is wow! Lenzig Leal's vocals may not be the best of the genre, but he has a good range of styles that he mixes up, he is never boring to listen to and he can match the guttural growls with a high pitched scream. Zac Joe, Steve Goldberg, and Nick Schendzielos pull off some wild stuff on their instruments of string, fast lead breaks, heavy as hell riffs, and all manner of spastic breaks. They are an impresive unit of extreme experimental metal ferocity.
Bottomline. Very impressive. This is definitely a band I am going to have to get some of their back catalog. Xenosapien is a strong, vividly realized excursion to the edges of experimental metal. It is challenging and accessible at the same time, with a variety of song structures it is music that is never boring. Again, all I can say is "Wow!"
Highly Recommended.
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