Review Summary: This relatively-underground technical death metal band sets out to blend old and new into original concepts, powerful meanings, and an overall enjoyable sound.
Canadian technical death metal trio
Unbreakable Hatred provided us with an extremely enjoyable listening experience this past May, and the dissecting of their debut full-length has been just as pleasing as my first listen. Indeed, for fans of technical metal beasts such as
Origin or
Oracles-era
Fleshgod Apocalypse, you may find a few more tracks for your music library with
Total Chaos. While this record isn't necessarily as well-produced or heavy as the aforementioned tech-death giants - it
is a relatively underground band, after all - Unbreakable Hatred has populated their first LP with a sea of proficiency, complete with technical riffs, lengthy solos, expertly-paced drumming, and experienced vocal-work.
Total Chaos is brimming with skill and effort, and is an extremely refreshing listen. I'm tempted to say that their guitarists are easily capable of putting
All Shall Perish to shame.
The album opens with "Condemned to Serve", which serves its purpose (no pun intended) as the track that establishes a definitive sound that you can expect to be matched and possibly surpassed with the coming tracks. The title track comes next and brings a tasteful solo and well-executed drumming, and that lends well to the structure of the third track - the band track. That's right. Unbreakable Hatred made a song called "Unbreakable Hatred". This isn't all that uncommon, I suppose -
Amon Amarth did it on their first full-length - but I almost expected it to be more of a vanity project than it was. "Unbreakable Hatred" is actually the shortest track on the album, and the lyrics really get into the meaning of the band's name. Enjoyable, no doubt. I was impressed with the technical proficiency on this record - the latter half of
Total Chaos in particular is laden with riffing that paces the album extremely well, working with the drumming to keep the sound from devolving into bedlam during key moments. The riffing also does well in keeping the listener on their toes, and prevents the album from being boring. Unbreakable Hatred does a great job mixing it up. I can say without much doubt at all that I was never bored when listening to their debut - something that takes a respectable amount of skill, in my opinion, and is indicative of a promising future in the studio and on stage. They slow things down when they need to be slowed, and speed things up to a powerful BPM when it fits, but something unexpected from this band is that they don't overdo it. The band's sound doesn't necessarily need all that extra oomph added in the production of other sounds like
The Red Chord, and the fact that they've made such a listenable record without it is definitely respectable, in my eyes.
Let's get into the nitty-gritty. What makes the riffing so varied? Rather then remaining excessively tethered to a single structure,
Total Chaos often has varying time signatures between the instruments that resonate well when meshed just right - particularly the rhythm guitar and the drums - and that the band pulled this feat off and still have a sound structure just
screams skilled. A personal complaint is that there are more than a few breakdowns on
Total Chaos, but it's not breakdown-oriented and the exceptional guitar and drum performances are more than sufficient to excuse what
might be a slightly excessive use of breakdowns. The drumming surprised me, actually, because it seems to differ from typical technical drumming quite a bit, sharing similarities with bands like Amon Amarth at times. Other times, though, it sounds just like what you might expect out of a tech-death record. Either way, it sounds good, and it fits well. I suppose that's what really matters at the end of the day. The last point that I glazed over is the vocals. Unbreakable Hatred's vocalist is skilled in that he doesn't often change his tone or pitch but still manages to sound brutal, meaningful, and filled to the brim with bad-assery, all at the same time. It could use more diversity, but all in all, there's little to complain about. He does a great job. The way the sound coalesces is quite impressive, really, and I can't wait to listen to what they have in store for the years to come. I enjoyed the sound, I enjoyed the meanings... hell, I enjoyed the record. You probably will too. Check it out.
Recommended Tracks:
1. "Condemned to Serve"
2. "Total Chaos"
5. "Years of Violence"
7. "We Can't Exist in This World of Wax"
