Planetary Duality

First of all, I know this isnt a deathcore band, but it’s an album I thought was really good. Deathcore takes loads of influences from technical death metal, such as blast beasts and death growling, which is probably why I enjoyed this album so much.

The Faceless are a technical death metal Band from Encino California, they’ve been around for 6 years and Planetary Duality is their second album to date. They are also signed to Sumerian records.
Planetary Duality is pretty standard as technical death metal comes, but what makes this album awesome is that The Faceless have hit the nail on the head with playing great music; the drumming is mad, the guitars are insanely fast and the vocals, while standard, are powerful and dont turn into an endless pig squeal.
Another aspect of this album which is really awesome is that they’ve got a keyboardist playing a really creepy track behind some of the songs, it adds a great creepy feel to the music, which you’re more familiar to hearing in bands like Winds of Plague or Dimmu Borgir.
One thing I didn’t quite get with this album is the strange vocoder effect in some of the songs, its a little out of place and makes you think ” what was that?!”. Apart from this though I have no other problems with this album, it’s dripping with the talent and the obvious hard work which has been put into it.
 The Faceless are able to produce a heavy as fuck album the whole way through, with a blistering pace, leaving you wanting more and not bored of mindless grind.
Check out The Faceless’ Myspace!: http://www.myspace.com/thefaceless

Depths

Oceano were formed in 2006, but they released their debut album last year, due to numerous line up changes. Their vocalist, Adam Warren pumps out some amazing inverse vocals, similar to those in Annotation of an Autopsy’s first album, which can be described as a fusion of sludge and black metal.

They’ve firmly cemented themselves as an awesome band with this album, it’s typical breakdowns, blast beats and tremello mixed in with an original vocal style. Depths is a fast paced and thoughroughlly brutal album at it’s core and while it may not be the most technical album, Oceano show their ability by being able to take a normally typical sound, perfect it and make it their own. They also make great use of a lot of distortion on the guitars and it’s a really, really, really clean recording, which is something extremely rare for a band’s first release.
Depths is an album which has been written to be extremely heavy and also quite majestic, songs such as “Fractured Frames, Scattered Flesh” and ” Disgust for Your Kind” have a lot of underlying doom metal influences, which combine with the heavily distorted guitars creates a really dark and creepy feel to the album, which is awesome. As with most albums which are heavy, there is normall an interlude song which is used to give the listener a bit of a break; Depth’s has a self titled track in this position, which while a good song, is slightly too fast paced, although it could be argued that it helps keep the listener in the mood for fast and heavy music.
Generic as hell, not hugely technical, but fresh, brutal and a familiar sound which people who enjoy the deathcore genre of music will enjoy, Depth’s is a great first album from Oceano. Look up their myspace for more information about the band, and their new album, which they’ve finished recording: http://www.myspace.com/oceano

Wormwood

The Acacia Strain are a four man band from Chicopee, Massachusetts and they are angry as fuck. Their sound mixes familiar hardcore with harsh death metal vocals and fast paced drumming. Wormwood is their fifth album to date and it’s by far the best they’ve created. Their previous album, Continent was a somewhat progressive album with unforgettable songs, and a few fast paced gang chant style ones to get the crowd going, which is a formula which they’ve chosen to keep to with Wormwood. This album is so heavy it will literally melt the skin from you’re face.

The album starts off slow and heavy, moving to some slightly faster paced songs, such as The Hills Have Eyes, Ramirez and Jonestown but overall staying that way. People familiar with The Acacia Strain will see that a couple of the songs are from previous EP’s, such as “The Hills Have Eyes” and “Terminated” and have been re-recorded, with parts changed so that they are  more technical.
Despite the album sounding absolutely brilliant, there is one small peeve that I have. The lyrics; where some songs have some great lyrics which are obviously tailored to be chanted along to at shows, others have some pretty cheesy lines, which at times come across as being silly, making you feel uncomfortable, because you want to know if they are joking or serious.
I was so hyped for this album and was not disapointed, The Acacia Strain have shown they are one hell of a band and  while they may not be the most technical, they have found a sound which really, really works for them. Check out their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/theacaciastrain

A New Era of Corruption

Whitechapel are one of the powerhouses of the Deathcore genre; with a strong vocalist who has an awesome range and a plethora of other talented band members to back up, including three guitarists. They’ve just released their third album, “ A New Era of Corruption” which has reached 43rd place on the US Billboard 200 Chart, quite a success for a band from an fairly underground genre.

With this album, Whitechapel’s sound has been much more refined and the band itself has progressed a lot musically, the vocals are much cleaner, instead of being really guttural and Phil Bozeman has shown his ability to do some amazing highs. The guitars sound a lot better compared to those in previous albums, where the recording has not been up to the highest standard, and they’ve been heavily distorted, which can sometimes work in the wrong way. You can actually hear when there is a solo now, but they also retain the chunky sound which listeners of Whitechapel’s earlier albums will recognise, this is a good change because it allows the guitarists to shine through.
There are also some fairly big names recruited for guest vocals on the album, Chino Mereno of Deftones and Vincent Bennett of The Acacia Strain. Both of these vocalists work well together with Whitechapel’s sound, unlike with some bands, due to Phil Bozeman’s unique and powerfull voice, the alternation between vocalists really works, where neither are drowning each other out.
Definately an album to get, check out Whitechapel’s myspace: http://www.myspace.com/whitechapel

New Adress!

Hey guys, got a new address - Hopefully you all find it and the metal society can continue to post some good updates of new music we all like!

Joe!