Review Summary: Wankery, at it's best
Rings of Saturn released yet another album that they like to label as "aliencore" which based of mainly their music, seems to be a genre that implements very technical playing of technical death metal and a big usage of breakdowns that is apparent in deathcore. Signs of this genre are besides that, for the most part exceedingly annoying sweeps that give the whole aliencore genre and band a lot of the alien like sound, but as well make it an irritating listen.
Every song is filled with atleast a minute of guitar sweeps played at extreme speeds. Those are monotonous and there is just a few moments when they seem to be used well. For the most part though, those sweeps are written independently with no other points of interests you can give your attention to. Awarding you often with about 20-30 seconds of absolute wankery with some basswork and drums in the backround.
Album contains numerous amounts of bad breakdowns too, that just don't seem to bring any heaviness nor creativity to the album and seem to work just as filler minutes to the final product. It showcases pointless featurings of members from other bands too and very badly placed synths.
Drums are keeping up with technical style of playing. Fast blastbeats and double bass are being spread all over the record. In general, fairly common deathcore drumming, but that is what you would expect to hear in a deathcore album.
Negativity aside, Rings have yet got one very charming thing in almost every one of their albums. And that being actually awesome, (sometimes) melodic, catchy riffs and soloing. You might get disgusted by their annoying wankery and breakdowns, but Rings might then open up with great riffs that might just be some of the best riffs ever. Even so not as good as on Gidim's predecessors, being way more poorly written and boring, there's still lot of awesome riffs that will grab your attention. Perfect example of this would be the first minute of Mental Prolapse, ending solo of The Husk and the best highlight on the album: song Gidim.
Vocals aren't bad at all too, they show a good range, with both high screams and low screams. However compared to other deathcore vocalists you may not reasonably like them. Low screams are very similiar to Dan Watson's fry screamish lows so depends if you like him or not, because he even appears on one of the songs. Hypodermis Glitch Specifically.
This all is being heard with probably the cleanest production you'll ever hear in death metal. You can hear everything perfectly, no instrument is more distinct than the other. That fits the band overly technical sound, but may be for many boring and dull.
In the end, Gidim is capable of showing how creative and original Rings of Saturn can be, but the complete opposite too. It definitely was their worst album at the time because of how much it puts into effect the bizarreness and technical playing, compared to other albums When such level of technicality is not crafted well, it can be very exhausting and bothering. If you can get over the wankery though, you'll be honored with enjoyable riffs, solos and overall otherworldy experience.
Pros:
Great, enjoyable riffs
Original
Every instrument is heard well
Cons:
Extreme wankery
Amount of bad breakdowns
Bad use of synths
Recommended tracks:
Gidim - 4.5/5
Mental Prolapse - 3.5/5
The Husk - 3.5/5
