Review Summary: Scene grind at its core-y best (which isn't saying much).
“Scene grind” can be an ugly thing, but it can also be somewhat enjoyable. See You Next Tuesday’s
Parasite is no different. At times, it can be kind of catchy, but for the most part, it’s a breakdown-laden “grind” influenced bore-fest. It even has the stupid song titles to boot!
Now, this album is chaotic. No doubt about it. This can be a good thing, if used correctly. This album is not an example of that. Overly forced and poorly executed,
Parasite has little going for it, as it isn’t exactly the bright, shining star of originality that we all look for in music. Almost every song on the album runs the same formula of “fast intro-slow breakdown-annoying whammy bar technique”. Most of the riffs consist of stupid pull offs up and down the fret board with random notes thrown in to try and cohere the sloppy melodies together, not to mention they all sound the same. Even the intensity on the album seems forced with growling vocals and frustrating breakdowns chugging along in every song.
An upside to this album of seemingly worthless garbage is the drumming, which surprised me. Decently executed blast beats and double bass patterns that I wasn’t expecting hit me, and I liked them. It’s a terrible shame that Andy Dalton is used 60% of the time for crappy –core breakdowns that certainly detract from his faster work.
Honey, I've Never Had Sex That Wasn't Awkward and
Man-Dude Vs. Dude-Brah (Where's The Party At?), while poor songs for the most part, contain the pretty impressive drumming without too bad of a subtraction for drawn out bridges.
While the production on this album is very clean, the guitars, although having clean tone, are much too high in the mix, making for a serious aggravating distraction. This wouldn’t be a problem if the content of the guitar work wasn’t so, well, bad. Overt high pitched shredding and obnoxious whammy bar use are major downfalls, while all over unoriginality is almost as bad.
Paraphilia is probably the only track on the album with a worthwhile riff (it’s really the only worthwhile track on the album), mainly because it’s the only one that is distinguishable from all the rest because of its relatively slow tempo and melodic sound.
If there is one thing that serves
Parasite well, it’s the length of the album as a whole. Clocking in at just over 17 minutes, it’s a quick listen that doesn’t need mulling over to appreciate. It’s perfectly easy to dissect at face level, something I wouldn’t want to say for my record, but it really works on this album, and I guess it’s good that it did, seeing as not much else about it is that good. Song lengths are on average about 50 seconds to a minute long, with the last track
Pogonatrophy (Part Two: The Parasite), being a minority clocking in at over three minutes.
Yet another flaw to this album are the tasteless breakdowns, coming in doubles in almost every one minute song. The stale chugging really takes a huge toll on what little value the album holds. You can almost start a song and predict at what times breakdowns will rear. The predictability that comes with the album is a factor that just adds to the tediousness of it all. More than likely, every single track you hear with have about 65 to 80 percent set aside for moshing time.
Although the album has a lot, and I mean a lot, of faults, there is some light in it:
• It is much better than your run off the mill generic metalcore; at least it tries to vary up the tempos some of the time.
• If you have to have breakdowns, these are better than the one lining contemporaries of its metalcore peers
• The shrieked vocals are much more interesting than the tough guy yelling’s of most other metalcore.
These might not seem like much, but they set this album aside from the junk that is in the genre nowadays. When grouped with metalcore, this album shines. When grouped anywhere else, this album is very poor, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Pro’s[+]
For metalcore, it’s alright
Paraphilia
Con’s[-]
Lame unoriginal riffs
Way too many irritating breakdowns
Stupid song titles and lyrics
Recommended Tracks
Paraphilia
Pogonatrophy (Part Two: The Parasite)
