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Category: technical

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The California Bay Area has long been a home to some of the most technical death metal around. The slow but inevitable dissolution of Necrophagist, the continuing studio hiatus of Odious Mortem, and the folding of Spawn Of Possession and more recently Brain Drill has acted as a catalyst for the formation of several domestic and international supergroups. Continuum from Santa Cruz was formed in 2009 by sometime Decrepit Birth guitarist Chase Fraser and is home to former members from Brain Drill, Inanimate Existence, and post-Jacoby Kingston Deeds Of Flesh. After several years of incubation Continuum debuted in 2015 with “The Hypothesis”. “Designed Obsolescence” harkens back to the halcyon days of pre-2005 when Unique Leader was a boutique label specialized in death metal exclusively. With Inherit Disease no longer under contract, Continuum is hellbent on replacing them as the label’s flagship act.

Fraser has surrounded himself with quite the talent. Riley McShane is also in Allegaeon and fronted Inanimate Existence for an album, Ivan Munguia has played with Odious Mortem, Nick Willbrand has recorded an album with Flesh Consumed, and Ron Casey is probably the most in-demand drummer of the last decade and a half. He, like Munguia, was involved with Brain Drill and appeared on their “Quantum Catastrophe”. With an assembly of this caliber “Designed Obsolescence” could’ve easily succumbed to masturbatory excess and egocentric indulgence, yet somehow it never does. Fraser is able to rein in everybody’s showboating tendencies and everything is always in service of the song. The only somewhat puzzling choice is placing Ivan Munguia on rhythm - instead of bass guitar. Willbrand is certainly up for the task but he’s no Jeroen Paul Thesseling, Linus Klausenitzer, Steve DiGiorgio, Michael Poggione, Erlend Caspersen, Giulia Pallozzi, or Éric Langlois. Which doesn’t make Continuum any less than a gathering of local mega talent and something that sounds right at home next to Omnihility, Equipoise, and latter-day Decrepit Birth as well as Canadian acts Augury, Beyond Creation, and First Fragment. For better or worse, Continuum is very much a product of its time.

Continuum takes more than a page or two from now-defunct Swedish act Spawn Of Possession and the shadow of “Cabinet” and “Noctambulant” looms large over “Designed Obsolescence”. Fraser and his men give it enough of a Californian flavor and his soloing is more than a little reminiscent of somebody like Jonas Bryssling. McShane for the most part sounds like Obie Flett from Inherit Disease but tends to alternate more between highs and lows. The swelling orchestral flourish in ‘Designed Obsolescence’ is a nice little touch that immensely enhances the atmosphere. The concept isn’t whole that novel as Soreption did it earlier on “Engineering the Void” in 2014 and bands as Fleshgod Apocalypse and Scrambled Defuncts have made it their entire raison d'être. ‘All Manner Of Decay’ is custodian to probably the best solo of the record. The bass guitar is felt more than heard but is allowed slightly more space in ‘Autonomic’. ‘Repeating Actions’ concludes with the same riff that opens ‘Theorem’ thus creating a semblance of inter-track continuity. The stars of Continuum are definitely Chase Fraser and drummer Ron Casey. The more progressive setup gives Casey is far more freedom to flex his muscles, whereas the narrow confines of Brain Drill restricted what he could do behind the kit. The Pär Olofsson artwork really drives home how apt the Spawn Of Possession comparisons are. At this point you’d imagine the scene having on moved on from Olofsson. Apparently not. For a band as forward-thinking as Continuum it’s surprising that they haven’t discovered Guang Yang, Aditia Wardhana, César Eidrian, Federico Musetti, Dusan Markovic, Monte Cook, or Johnson Ting yet.

It’s not so much a question about ability, either individually or collective, but whether Continuum will be able to differentiate itself enough from competition, foreign and domestic. While there are some mild New Age textures and sparse orchestral enhancements it remains to be seen how and if Continuum will be able to differentiate itself from similar acts as Inanimate Existence, and post-“Procreating An Apocalypse” Inherit Disease. Inanimate Existence is aesthetically different enough through its New Age spirituality imagery and Inherit Disease were among the earlier to push a dystopian futurist and technology-based lyrical concept. Not that that was in any way novel in and of itself. There was after all a little band called Fear Factory who did it earlier than anyone else. The concept of “designed obsolescence” has been commonplace in industrial design and economics for several decades and concerns the intentional planning of a product to become obsolete within a set timeframe as to generate long-term sales volume by repeat purchases of said product. The lyrics about the omnipresence of technology, artificial intelligence, the singularity, and the loss of identity in the digital matrix are interesting and certainly eloquent enough. There’s certainly something slightly ironic about an album title like this when Continuum is one among many such ventures and one bound to tie itself to a certain time-period.

Unique Leader remains one of the most reliable houses of quality death metal, although they arguably lost some of their luster when they started signing deathcore en masse. Continuum is as good as anything from the Unique Leader stable and that they sound like one or two bands that used to be on the label is probably not just a happy coincidence. As a product of the death metal arms race “Designed Obsolescence” sounds like a throwback to the bygone days of 2004-2005 when technical death metal was really taking flight as a genre after the release of “Epitaph” from Necrophagist. In fact Necrophagist would come to define the next decade even if they never came around to releasing that eagerly anticipated third album. Perhaps it is that drives bands like Continuum, the urge to fill that void left by Germany’s last important death metal band. It’s not a bad spot to be in, anyway. With the promotion department of Unique Leader behind them the best is yet to come for Continuum. Here’s hoping they further expand on what they’re pushing here. There’s potential aplenty, for sure.

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After the rise and fall of Sepultura and before the advent of populist metal trio Nervosa there was Krisiun. Since 1990 the Kolesne brothers have been proudly flying the flag for Brazilian death metal. Often imitated, domestic and abroad, but never surpassed, their four-album jaunt up until 2001's "Ageless Venomous" was pretty much flawless. "Works Of Carnage" was a stylistic experiment that toyed with shorter, bouncier cuts and big choruses. On 2006’s “AssassiNation” things really took a turn for the worse. Those vainly hoping for a creative renaissance had their hopes squashed with “Forged In Fury”. That record was a bloated, over-long, directionless platter signaling that the brothers three had finally hit rockbottom. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is their latest and if Dying Fetus, Morbid Angel and Monstrosity can produce decent records in their old age, so can they.

After a quarter of a century and 10 albums there’s bound to be some fatigue to the way a band writes. Krisiun hasn’t been handling anti-Christian rhetoric exclusively since “AssassiNation”. “Southern Storm” and “The Great Execution” were records that dealt with historical and mythological concepts of beasts and war almost entirely. Krisiun has been writing loose concept albums for more than a decade now and with “Scourge Of the Enthroned” the brothers continue that trend. Instead of their usual themes “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is based on Sumerian mythology. Every formula eventually proves fatal and in Krisiun’s instance that happened with “Forged In Fury”. It was probably their most critically savaged recording in the 12 years that they’ve been releasing mere variations of “AssassiNation”. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is not the much pined after creative renaissance for the Brazilian brothers, but at least it’s marginally more inspired than the insipid and meandering song sets they’ve been releasing over the last 15 years. It is folly to expect them to write another “Black Force Domain” or “Apocalyptic Revelation” but if the riffing is anything to go by “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is a step in the right direction again. Is this the next great Krisiun record? Hardly, but does it ever try.

At least Krisiun heeded the criticism leveled at some of their more recent works and opted for more manageable song lengths. Krisiun are at their best when they stay within the four-minute range and don’t loose themselves in boundless repetition. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” sheds most, if not all, of the trio’s typical extraneous diversions. It’s refreshingly straightforward and doesn’t bother with any of the usual pointless instrumentals that have been littering their albums since “Works Of Carnage”. A good Krisiun record clocks in around the 40-minute mark and this album’s 38 minutes is far closer to “Apocalyptic Revelation” than it is to “Southern Storm”. The songwriting too seems to have improved, although not in any drastic or dramatic sense. The cuts are mercifully more to-the-point and some of the riffing leans closer to “Conquerors Of Armageddon” than it does to “Works Of Carnage” which is always a plus. Max Kolesne’s blasts these days are more concentrated around selective portions of songs instead of being their entire raison d'être. Just like everybody else age is inevitably catching up to Krisiun and they don’t play as rabid and frenetic as they once did. In a more general sense “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is one of the trio’s better offerings, but the days of “Apocalyptic Revelation” and “Ageless Venomous” are well and truly behind us now.

Krisiun has always been about precision. Alex, Moyses and Max are world-class instrumentalists cursed with a fairly regressive concept of songwriting. “Works Of Carnage” was entertaining just because it was an experiment. “AssassiNation” had more of a groove metal inclination but it worked well enough within that context. They were mere creative outliers in a repertoire of largely linear and percussive songwriting that drew equally from Morbid Angel as it did from early Sepultura and Slayer. What people seem to selectively forget is that there indeed was a Krisiun in those long forgotten, halcyon days prior to 2003. That exactly those outliers have since become the apparent norm and the accepted standard to which all new Krisiun output is measured is scary enough of a prospect all by itself. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” brings back at least a fraction of the old riffing schemes and cuts down on the repetition and groove-fixated songwriting choices that have been bogging down the Krisiun assault for over a decade. Alex Camargo is still the weakest link and his barks have been getting less guttural for a while now. Krisiun is, much like Obituary, a band that has embraced its regressive tendencies as if they were virtues. The brothers three have been growing complacent and if “Forged In Fury” conclusively proved anything it was that. Krisiun has been stagnating for quite a number of years now and "Scourge Of the Enthroned" might as well be the first sign of life in a long time. Not that it's bound to become a new classic or even mandatory within the larger Krisiun canon. It's solid and unadventurous.

So where does that place “Scourge Of the Enthroned” in the now extensive Krisiun discography? It’s better than their last couple of records but it’s still no match for their classic first four albums. The angular, linear songwriting of yore has been replaced with more melodic by-the-numbers songwriting that reeks of cold professionalism and years of experience, as much as process. Perhaps Krisiun is not quite as guilty of the latter as some of their contemporaries, but they haven't sounded inspired and inspiring for over a decade. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” might not be the grand return of a band that has been falling to the wayside for quite some time now, but it offers enough reasons to remain cautiously optimistic. We might not demand (or expect) another “Ageless Venomous” from these three brothers but “Scourge Of the Enthroned” offers at least a smidgen of hope of them still being able to concoct a reasonable facsimile thereof. At least it's better than "Forged In Fury" and that should count for something these days...