Review Summary: Destroying the cosmos.
Apoptosis is a ***ing bash. The sound of this album is akin to a super blackhole consuming other black holes. Black holes that riff and shred and blast beat and all other sorts of goodness. Through what critics may call "brickwalled" production and through genuinely monstrous drumming, Allegaeon pulse and ebb their way through the cosmos devouring worlds or some other hyperbolic space-rending bull***. So yeah, it rules. The gutturals are deep, the guitars shred and chug and arpeggiate like their lives (putting aside that they are not animate) depended on it, and the drumming is equal parts flash and force through a balance of intricacy and speed.
Now, over time, lesser men would become lost. Lost in the shreds and blasts and growls and all things that some would call "wanky to a fault", which I would normally agree with for I too am a lesser man. However Allegaeon understand this and defy you, which is why there are well timed moments of Scar Symmetry-like melodious catharsis (i.e, the end of Extremophiles (B) and beginning of Extremophiles (A)). These stave off the eventual liquidation of us lesser men from the unstoppable black hole tour de force, and for that I commend and thank them.
Apoptosis-the death of cells which occurs as a normal and controlled part of an organism's growth or development. That is what Allegaeon have chosen to exemplify here on a larger scale, through interplanar journeying, ripping apart solar systems peice by peice through frantic shredding only taking moments to make recovery or reflection (that of which is shown on the harrowing intro of "Tsunami and Submergence). It is rather rare in the realm of tech death that a band takes a theme and manages to execute it genuinely well, but
Apoptosis has shown that when done the results are beautifully cataclysmic (and result in feeble attempts at "comedic" reviews, but that is neither here nor there). So, I implore YOU, fellow sputnikmusic.com resident, listen to this and love it. Or hate it. But preferably love it.
