Review Summary: Effective, well-crafted deathcore.
A quick preface before I dive into Psycho-Frame’s debut album,
Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother. My knowledge of deathcore is limited to a surface-level selection of obvious poster boys from the subgenre (Carnifex or Lorna Shore, anyone?), so I won’t even attempt to pull the wool over your eyes and say otherwise. However, while I don’t go out of my way to listen to deathcore, when I do take the plunge, I tend to have a pretty good time listening to it. So, what is it that stops me from wading through the subgenre’s myriad bands week to week? Well, it’s mainly because, to me, deathcore is a bit of a running joke, where bands participate in a game of who can be the most brvtal and overproduced. While this stuff is fun to listen to from time to time, it’s not something I could listen to on the regular. With that being said,
Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother caught my eye so I decided to give it a go.
The verdict? Well, it’s bloody good fun. It’s thirty-eight minutes of unfettered brutality that doesn’t give an inch on either side. Its most endearing quality is that it doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is: meat and potatoes deathcore. The more modern deathcore sensibilities – aspirations centred on evolving the genre in some grand way with a string section – are not present here. There is no long-winded, epic mood setter, or a handful of capricious spanners being thrown into the works like a modern Lorna Shore song, this is a no-frills slobberknocker operating on a lean diet of pig squeals, ferocious blast beats and buzzsaw guitar riffs. It’s a steadfast recipe that’s testament to the band’s nous putting it all together. It’s effective stuff that doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but instead sets out to celebrate the genre’s strongest qualities in the best way possible. The gambit here uses overused tropes that would normally get an eyeroll from detractors, but it’s all done with a level of competency and conviction that demands some kind of respect.
Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother is nonstop, breakneck brutality crafted in all the right ways: every track has a mind-bendingly high BPMs, a squall of dissonant guitars and pummelling drumwork, topped off with a “say the line, Bart” breakdown, but it’s the way in which these songs are composed that makes it so cathartic and easy to get through. Honestly, the pacing and runtime for this really helps its replay value, and the unrelenting nature of
Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother works in its favour.
As I’ve said, Psycho-Frame’s debut doesn’t push any boundaries, and it won’t make me reassess things to the point where I’ll start listening to this type of music more, but it is a really fun, hard-hitting record that gets the most out of this style, using their toolset to refine deathcore’s tropes into a fun and succinct experience. With a punchy production, solid songwriting, and an in-out runtime, this is an album worth checking out, even if you’re fatigued with deathcore at this point.
