Review: Creatures – II
Permit me a moment of indulgent self-reflection, if you will. I’ve been with the Toilet since pretty close to its inception. As with anything, I’ve had my share of ups and downs, but my time here has by and large been positive. I get to talk about sweet bands every week, and I’m rarely wanting for good new material. As such, I’ve never gone out of my way to write about stuff I don’t care for, especially if it’s from a smaller band.
That said, sometimes those smaller bands willingly send us their music, and sometimes that music makes its way to me. For some background, Creatures is a deathcore outfit that has been banging around the Toronto area for the past few years, and… well, that’s all I know about them. Their promo says their music is for fans of Angelmaker, Carnifex, and Veil of Maya. I’m a fan of exactly zero of those bands and am a big fan of dragging deathcore’s moldering corpse through the mud. The only reason I can think of that Lacertilian would send me this is that the band did something to personally insult him [Lizard Note: thought their mention of Necrophagist would get you Mad Online™].
“Old Style F.A.” kicks off the proceedings with the world’s shortest buildup and immediately killing all two Newton-seconds of momentum it generated with a movie sample that lasts longer than the music preceding it. From there on out, it’s as banal as you’d expect, running through the checklist of every shitty deathcore convention in the book. The riffs are all directionless chugging and simple fills, bereft of either emotion or technical aptitude. Not one of the breakdowns elicit anything more than a beleaguered sigh, and the sparse leads and synths are downright embarrassing. I’m not sure if Creatures were going for the “Born of Osiris but worse” sound with II, but if so, then congratulations! You did it, Creatures! High fives and warm PBR’s all around.
And then there are the lyrics. Oh, the lyrics. There’s a bit of your run-of-the-mill Red Pill BS in the aforementioned “Old Style” and “Safe Space (Triggered),” the former being about getting drunk and CRUSHING PUSS (but not actually because, as they so profoundly state, “bros before hoes, сука блять”) and the latter being an indictment of PC culture that’s somehow more flaccid than their production. “Safe Space” is made even more pathetic by being the immediate followup to “Broken Anchors,” a song about how somebody hurt their feelings. And then there’s “What Would Rick Sanchez Do,” jumping on the nihilism-as-a-fashion-statement train and providing further evidence that Rick and Morty’s fanbase is just the worst. Oh, and “Samara” is about The Ring, so I guess that’s neat.
This album fails so spectacularly at every level that I have to wonder if it was intentional. That doesn’t make it any better; if it’s a joke, it sucks, and if it’s not, that just makes it worse. II exemplifies everything that’s wrong with the current deathcore scene rolled into one pungent little packed, set ablaze, and dumped on your front step. With bands like Graveborn and Sun Speaker experimenting and pushing the genre in new and exciting directions, there’s just no need for this type of deathcore to exist anymore. So thank you, Creatures, for wasting everyone’s time with this garbage. Just fucking stop.
0 / 5
If you feel like throwing actual money that you worked for at this for some reason instead of something productive, you can pick it up from Old Haunt Records on July 20th.
