Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth Review

Genghis Tron Dead Mountain Mouth

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Tracklist:
01. The Folding Road
02. Chapels
03. From The Aisle
04. Dead Mountain Mouth
05. White Walls
06. Badlands
07. Greek Beds
08. Asleep On The Forest Floor
09. Warm Woods
10. Lake Of Virgins

Release Date: 2006

Ranking: #169 for 2006

user rating

3.7
great

Chart.

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Nick Greer Staff (3)
...

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Chapels

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On 9 Lists

4.0
excellent

Derek STAFF (103 Reviews)

2006-11-07 | 20 comments | 2,699 views

Genghis Tron aren't like other normal grindcore bands. One moment they can assault your ears with the most dissonant and harsh sounds your ears can handle and then all of a sudden the tempo drops and you hear this cheesy disco-type music. Seem appealing? Maybe yes and maybe not. The fact of the matter is Dead Mountain Mouth is a solid experimental record infused with some weird electronica to keep things interesting. Of course, I didn't know what to expect from when I looked this band up but I'm glad I did. This is really enjoyable even if you aren't such a grind fan (as it obviously isn't straight up grind, this actually has proper melody).

The vocals are very harsh which makes it sound painful to make but it always feels very Converge-like disagree or not. The guitars probably don't play as much of a role in the album than in most grind but mostly cause it's a lot more keyboard based. The guitars are rather sweet. Whether they are getting the crap bashed out them or they are playing some uber-cool hardcore lick. The drums are shadowed by the amount of samples on the album but it's still got some extremely good beats. It's either the drums are playing a complicated drum part consisted of aggressive double bass or they opt for the typical grind blast beat. Either of them make me happy none the less. The album consists of two styles throughout - the typical grind sound with a twist of electronica goodness or just samples upon samples.

To the casual listener the samples could just tick a man off but there is a catch. When a listener listens to this for the first time it'll be hard to figure what track is which. It's basically cause most of the tracks follow onto each other like a story. Listen to this the whole way through cause this is basically how this album need to be experienced. Another good thing about Genghis Tron is their way of being quite unique. There probably isn't another band who sounds very similar to them except from the idea of Horse The Band using cheesy samples. But Genghis Tron use the samples in a more progressive, serious state. After all this praise contained in these words, is there actually anything wrong with the album? Yes there is in fact. While the samples and electronic beats were a very nice touch, they were very overused. A lot of the songs duration is just crunched up by the continuous samples. It's not really anything to seriously get on one's nerves but it's just a matter of opinion.

If the listener hasn't listened to anything mildly heavy then this could be slightly hard to get into. The Folding Road (the opener) probably has one of the heaviest parts of the album. All coming in before the first minute of the album. Chapels contains some nice sparingly used electronic parts but still contains an ear-bursting assault. The self-titled track contains this quite catchy, melodic guitar part which makes one think, "this is what I'm listening for!" In truth all the songs are great (and easy to get some enjoyment out of) and it's overall a rather solid album to sink a person's teeth into. Fans of screamo (yes), electronica, grind (obviously) or hardcore will get something out of this.

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