Review Summary: Incongruous finds Beneath The Massacre polishing their craft to a higher level.
Continuing to pave their own path in aggressive death metal, Beneath The Massacre continue with their business as usual approach to their decimating brand of the debilitating grind hybrid they’ve helped to develop.
Having kept quiet in recent memory, aside from a blip of an EP making the slightest chirp in their discography, the quartet waste no time getting right to the meat and potatoes of their talents. The guitars start doodling at furious speeds right away, while bass and drums furiously roar behind them in unison, rarely slowing down to catch their breath or showcase signs of weakness. This of course is nothing new, as previous releases maintained the same formula and have proven successful time and time again. The sheer ferociousness of the genre these guys have mastered is beyond fury. As if all the artillery in the arsenal was being purged to liquidate a small nation, the tracks pick off the weakest listener one by one. Ogre Elliot Desgagnes’s unrelenting bellows purge line after line of augmented poetry, personifying his tone as one of a true demon. If war was a name of music genre, then this is what it would sound like.
At this point in their catalogue, the band seems much more than comfortable in what they can accomplish rather than discovering new tricks. Incongruous finds the band working away while they master their craft, honing in to meticulously fine tune intricate details of licks and sweeps, carefully flowing into each verse of each song. Instead of pursuing uncharted territory and straying from a proven technique, the group takes what they’ve developed and build a monster of a compilation of riffs and compositions. It’s as if the college athlete got snagged in the first round and made it all the way to nationals to win the MVP in the championship game.
Those of us who have kept afloat in the bands professional conditioning of each nook and cranny, are not so moved by how fast the drums have gotten, or even interested in the fact that Christopher Bradley has not tracked the same riff twice at this point in his career, but more so in the fact that the projection of each track has gotten increasingly easier to swallow.
The execution of the sound presented here and the depth and detail that goes into each track make it a remarkable effort that should be acknowledged for its ability to present this concept so fluidly and in such a digestible fashion. If not for any other reason, this release is so honed in to the bolts of each song that it can be considered abstract and should be projected through speakers behind a glass case. Beneath The Massacre has sped miles away from their competition and have taken a step away from the community around them and find themselves floating boastfully in a sea of mediocrity.
