Unbirth Will Please Your Fleshforged Columns With This New Stream
It’s Tech Death Monday too, fuckers, and we’ve got the sickest of streams for you today.
Ah, brutal death metal; the most fickle of subgenres. When it’s bad, it’s unlistenable, but when it’s good, it’s really fucking good. It’s all about finding an enthralling way to channel the music’s inherent violence. It’s the difference between bearing witness to a bloodbath worthy of the Roman Colosseum and banging your head against the wall in boredom.
Unbirth belong squarely in the former camp. Fleshforged Columns of Deceit is a glorious display of brutality, easily one of the finest of its kind. The band hit a few snags over the past month or so trying to get it released, but at long last, it’s ready. I am stoked as hell to help them bring it to you in its entirety today, so hit that play button and read on below:
If you recall the last time we talked about Fleshforged Columns, there are a number of factors at play that make it stand out in the writhing mass of the BDM scene. First, and probably most important, is their willingness to embrace melody. This is an album that’s loaded with hooks, both in rhythm and note choice; you know when that breakdown hits that it’s going to stick with you after it passes. Tying into that idea of note choice is the tuning they use. I might be mistaken, but it sounds like this is in standard tuning, eschewing the girth of extreme low tunings that most other brutal death bands tend to favor. This might seem like a minor aesthetic choice, but it solves a lot of the muddiness issues said other bands encounter. Even when the guitar is playing at its lowest note, it’s not trampling on the feet of the bass; with each instrument playing in a different register, everything sounds much fuller and clearer. This might sound like Composition 101, but it’s something that gets missed with surprising frequency.
Also factoring into that clarity is the fantastic production job. The bass is raw and beefy- a perfect combination of adjectives for this type of music- and that guitar tone is both crisp and chunky. Just listen to those riffs; even when they’re not palm-muted, those tremolo picking parts are just disgustingly thick. The drums are relentless without being overbearing in the mix; this really is exactly what you want your brutal death to sound like.
When it comes to tech-oriented brutal death, it doesn’t get better than this. Unbirth’s blend of intelligent songwriting and good production make Fleshforged Columns of Deceit an immediate standout, and it has nearly instantly become one of my favorite brutal death metal albums. Your mileage may vary if you come seeking slams, as they are few and far between here, but I can guarantee you a good time if you let yourself get lost in the bloody spectacle.
Fleshforged is out today digitally on Bandcamp and will be available physically through New Standard Elite in the near future; keep an eye on Unbirth’s Facebook page for details.
(Images VIA)
