This review is for Through The Eyes Of The Dead's Half of the split with The Knife Trade entitled
The Annihilation Of Expectation.
The Annihilation Of Expectation starts out very interestingly, some wind noises, and then a neck breaking introductory riff, followed shortly after with a clip from
Dawn Of The Dead:
"When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth."
Thus starts
Abyssal Creation, with yet another crunching riff, and a piercing shriek from vocalist Anthony Gunnels. Quite quickly, the song bursts out into a fast paced melodic attack, twin guitar harmonies, stop and go riffing, double-kick drumming reminiscent of a machine gun, and of course fantastic vocals contrasting between a shrieking high-end, a magnificent mid-range, and a brutal growl. Towards the end we go into a nice and slow melodic interlude, and then, more brutality!
"He disembowled her, after he cut a thorough stab in her chest, cut out her stomach and took out the intestines... at least one of her oraphaces was removed..."
The Reconstruction Of The Female Anatomy starts out with a nice clip about Jack The Ripper, and then we're thrown into more energetic melodic brutallity. Fantastic melodic lead, nice contrasting breakdown a bit further in, and then an over all change. The song is basically made of stop and go riffing, you've got melodic riff then chugging riff then melodic riff all over again, the entire time you've got the perfect blend of shrieking and growling to cover the diversity. Overall, the song is just intense, even if it just progresses all over the place rather than in a straight line.
"There are no more barriers to cross; all I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all of the mayhem I have caused, I have surpassed,"
Not sure what the clip is, but
Erratic Perception starts out with a very Black Dahlia Murder-esque slow melodic yet somehow brutal as *** intro, but then progresses into TTEOTD's well shaped, unique sound... a bit more structure to this song though, the riffs seem to lead into one another a bit better than on
Reconstruction, still, tons of contrasts between brutal chuggy parts and quick melodic parts. Towards the end, the whole song stops, we have a nice drum fill, and then wtf? Between The Buried In Me? Not quite, but similar, much better vocals though!
The Truest Shade Of Crimson can be considered TTEOTD's 'epic ballad.'
6 minutes of progressing from one riff to another, all the while Anthony tells the tale of being so in love with a girl that he wants to murder her.
At 1:32, nice creepy solo with a very In Flames
F(r)iend style rhythm, then it explodes, only to start chugging away again about 30 seconds later:
"Around your neck is where my hands are heading to prove my point that love is what you make it.
It's not that I hate you, it's just that I love to hurt you."
And then we have a beautiful solo at 2:47, one of my favorites ever, really, and yes, they follow it with another explosion of brutality, gotta love it, they're all over the place, but you can count on them to do it. The song has a nice outro of Anthony growling, "I don't hate you, I just love to hurt you," repeatedly, slowing down each time (the music as well), and steadily going deaper, absolutely perfect way to end the album, so perfectly dramatic.
Overall, I'd say TTEOTD's half of the split deserves a 4/5, it's absolutely amazing. As I've stated before, it's all over the place, it's completely energetic, and it's beautifully melodic, and crushingly brutal at the same time.
