Review Summary: "The Discovery"-lite. Too bad it copies nothing of the really good stuff.
A word of fair warning: if the summary wasn't a clue, references to Born of Osiris and their album "The Discovery" will be appearing quite liberally throughout this review.
The new wave of deathcore, what I call "intelligent deathcore" has firmly taken root. After Born of Osiris paved the way for electronics-embellished deathcore with science-inclined lyrics (before going painfully downhill themselves), many similar bands have started springing up, with their own distinct takes on the genre. Some, like Make them Suffer or Lorelei incorporate black metal and classical tastes, while others, go the futuristic, electronics-laden route. Some bands such as Assemble the Chariots even combine these two approaches. Still, in most cases these added influences affect only the musical overlay - the package, while the structure of the music itself remains painfully boring and chuggy. Nexilva is one such band from the UK.
To be perfectly frank, I haven't yet heard an album that would rip off Born of Osiris' "The Discovery" as blatantly as "Eschatologies" does. But while the former is one of those rare albums that in spite of the constant chugging boast really strong songwriting that makes things interesting, "Eschatologies" itself is nothing but a boring, tedious chugfest with some blast beats, 2002 deathcore riffs and cliché keyboard patterns.
I have begun noticing a trend - while some staple bands in certain genres have admittedly made good music, they make for abysmal influences - and bands citing them as some of theirs would have done much better to seek inspiration from their idols' own influences rather than the idols themselves. This holds true, for example, for all those metalcore bands who cite Soilwork as one of their influences, but their music turns out to be so inferior to Soilwork's that it isn't even funny, because they liked Soilwork for all the wrong reasons (not that Soilwork hasn't done their own share of crappy music in their time, but I digress).
Which brings us to Nexilva, whose copying Born of Osiris is obvious to the listener literally after the first few seconds of the first song, and nothing that comes afterwards ever dispels this impression. The guys from Nexilva are a textbook example of what I wrote about in the last paragraph - they clearly liked "The Discovery", were able to identify what they liked about the music and successfully copied this on their own album, however they utterly failed to notice the element of songwriting that really made "The Discovery" good, and likewise, failed to copy that. They only noticed what's on the surface, much like those fans of BOO who don't see any difference between "The Discovery" and "Tomorrow We Die Alive".
And this is what we got here with "Eschatologies". A moderately successful copy at best. While the album has its moments, the songs are overall so indistinct from each other that you forget all of even the good stuff one it's finished playing. The formula to the songwriting is found in every single song and involves either chugging or uninspired keyboard and guitar arpeggios over blast beats, downtempo syncopated beats, or Slayer beats. The rest is, unsurprisingly, breakdowns. And there's not much more to speak of. The intelligent-sounding titles for such not-very-intelligently-composed songs only scream out as an ironic icing on this mediocrity sundae.
All in all, this is not abysmal, just boring and mediocre. Every song is the same, not counting the adequate if unremarkable soft passages. I personally see no reason to listen to it a second time. If you want really intelligent, grounbreaking and well-composed deathcore, then listen to Ovid's Withering or Slice the Cake instead. "Alright I guess" is the biggest praise I can offer to "Eschatologies". I suppose you'll like this album if you dig Born of Osiris' latest, though.
Album rating: 2.7
