Tech Death Thursday: Ataxia
Jack’s Back!
As my old buddy from college would say, it’s been a hot minute since I wrote a TDT. Perhaps you are wondering why this is. Maybe you thought I ran out of tech? Bitch please do you know who you’re talking to? In truth I had a particularly nasty terrorist cell I was dealing with. Not only were these fools into biological weapons, but they insisted on blasting Emmure and Five Finger Death Punch when they began an assault. Naturally this became priority one for the Archbauer. Good news though, they have been apprehended and are currently locked in the new addition to the interrogation room. Said new addition is a soundproof room where no one can hear you scream and they are currently locked in there with AEvangelist playing at a very loud volume. Anywho… we have a lot of news to catch up on so let’s get to it! FYI some of this stuff may be a few weeks old as far as news goes.
- Rivers of Nihil have finished recording their new album. I’m looking forward to seeing if they top their debut.
- Black Crown Initiate have begun writing their next album, and I have begun being impatient for it.
- The Faceless have rejoined forces with original bassist Brandon Griffin for the new album which is tentatively titled In Becoming a Ghost. More on that at their Facebook.
- Archspire don’t want to die in their van and have thus started an indiegogo campaign to help fund a new one. If you want to contribute to that you can do so here.
- Animality have announced they found a second guitarist and are hard at work on a new album titled Carnivore that will drop later this year.
- Pre-orders for the new album Loss from Theoktony are up at their bandcamp. While they aren’t strictly tech death, they are impressive as hell and worth checking out (check them out or I will murder you in your sleep).
- Toilet favorites Artificial Brain released a guitar playthrough for “Frozen Planets”. Peep that here.
- Soreption have released a playthrough for their song “A Speach To Survival” and you can check that out here.
- Enfold Darkness, previously featured on TDT, dropped a little snippit of a new song on their Facebook.
- In case you forgot how good he is, Archspire drummer Spencer Prewett released a clip on Facebook to remind us all that he isn’t human. Check that out here.
- The Ritual Aura shared a playthrough video for their song “Time Lost Utopia”. Stab here to see that.
- NoCleanSinging premiered a new song from Bedlam of Cacophony. Note that this is a simultaneously awesome and silly name. Check out the track here.
- Necrosy, also previously on TDT, have released their new album. If you haven’t done the proper thing and bought it, you can stream it here and then chastise yourself for not buying it already.
Before we chat about Ataxia, have a listen to their track “Manipulated Ascendancy”:
So, if you’re like me then the first thing you think of when you hear the word “Ataxia” is that STUPID FUCKING DISEASE THAT SKYRIM ALWAYS TRIES TO GIVE YOU. Luckily these dudes from London, Ontario (oh look, Canada) have given me something better to think about when I hear that word. Ataxia craft a unique type of tech death that doesn’t have weedlies or deedilies and is more on the brutal death metal side of things but still very technical. A somewhat close comparison would be Cytotoxin. Ataxia is a band that doesn’t go super fast for the sake of going super fast. That’s not to say that they don’t go fast at times, but when they do it is within the context of the song structure. The vocals lean strongly towards the brutal death metal side of things while the riffs are more on the death metal side of things. The drums are on point as well aside from the kick drum which sounds a bit iffy at times, but it’s not enough to make me not listen. On the production side of things everything is great aside from the afformentioned kick drum issue. Everything can be clearly heard and no one instrument drowns out the other. There’s also some really catchy riffs sprinkled throughout the songs. If you can’t find at least one thing to bang your head to in here, then I’m sorry, it seems you are a lost cause. You can grab Ataxia’s most recent album at their bandcamp, and of course don’t forget to follow them on the book of faces if you dig em.
As always if you feel you have something that is TDT worthy or you would like to be a guest writer, you can launch an E-mail at toiletovhelltdt@gmail.com. That’s it for this week. Until next time, “Stay Tech“.
