Tech Death Thursday: Deformatory
Deformatory are here, and they’re pissed. It’s Tech Death Thursday.
First, for some news:
- The Immortalis, Pt. 2 – Momentum, the second album from Alberta-based Divinity, is now streaming over at Bandcamp. Check it out for some spacey weedles and deedles.
- Arkaik’s Lucid Dawn came out last October, but the video for “The Temple Aflame” came out last Friday. If you haven’t heard this monster of an album yet, this is a good place to start.
- Speaking of videos, here’s one for “Cold As Perfection” from Fleshgod’s newest. Not for those averse to boobs and/or blood.
- Georgia trio Proliferation have a track from their forthcoming Rebirth: The Journey Through Soil (tentatively due on February 27th) available for your listening pleasure here. I’m assuming it’s a demo as the production quality is kind of low, but the song is sick nonetheless. Also, pretty sure that alien on the cover has dong fingers.
- Imperium have unveiled the cover art for their upcoming album Titanomachy. No word of a release date or new song as of yet, but I imagine we’ll be getting steamrolled by titanic goodness pretty soon.
- The flush will prevail once more. Fallujah have revealed the cover art for Dreamless, due out on April 29th.
I know I’m not the only person here who prefers their metal fast and angry, and tech death is no exception. There’s an art to making technical music that actually conveys a sense of rage as opposed to simply mimicking it. There are plenty of artists in the tech sphere who have the tools to do the latter; they know all the chord progressions that sound sinister, they know when to use accidentals, they have powerful screams, and so on. Precious few seem to actually be able to grab the spirit of that malice, though, and channel it into their music in a tangible way. Deformatory are one of those bands.
Malediction is the first in a series of concept albums about a devil named “Saväel,” following the story of his awakening and subsequent turning of everything to shit. The music certainly sounds the part; it’s played fast and loose, with less of an emphasis on being perfectly accurate and more on purveying the story through the music. You can hear mistakes and inconsistencies despite the razor-sharp production, but it’s not egregious. It gives the music a human element that is lacking in so many tech death releases. It’s akin to Colored Sands (Gorguts) in that sense; it’s well-performed and well-produced, but not driven to mechanical perfection.
At their core, Deformatory are a technical death metal band, but they’re wrapped tightly in a shell of OSDM. For every gravity blast and immaculately swept arpeggio, there is a sudden upswing in tempo or ravaging tremolo riff. They kind of remind me of Origin in that respect; they’re a band that takes both the “tech” and the “death” parts to heart in their songwriting. It’s music that can set a backdrop for thrashing your living room to pieces, but you’ll find surprising depth to it if you sit down and pick it apart.
Deformatory may not be unique in the world of death metal, but they are a rare gem indeed. Their blend of crushing brutality and technical aptitude is a force to be reckoned with, and I look forward to the continuing saga of Saväel. Malediction should not be missed by fans of any realm of death metal, technical or otherwise. Check them out at the Bandcamp link above and on Facebook, and tell them the Toilet says hi.
That’s all for this week, and until we meet again:
