Review Summary: Finally! Some tech-metal that doesn't suck.
In Maori mythology Tangaroa is the great god of the seas and the son of the sky, Rangi, and the earth, Papa. In reality, Tangaroa is a technical metal band from Leeds and is the son of Meshuggah and the Dillinger Escape Plan. Their debut album,
One Hand for the Knife, One Hand for the Throat combines the polyrythmic structures and unrelenting groove of the former with the technical wankery and schizophrenic freak-outs of the latter for an all around entertaining experience.
One Hand for the Knife, One Hand for the Throat opens with the technically impressive "Turn Off the TV, Shut the Magazine" and immediately you are welcomed with a frenetic grind inspired guitar freak out that is equal parts Cephalic Carnage as it is The Number 12 Looks Like You. It soon subsides and lets a rolling Meshuggah-esque groove carry it to the finish line. Through out the rest of the album Tangaroa carefully balance their shred happy fingerboard acrobatics with their slower head bang inducing riffing. Unfortunately they try a tad bit too hard as many of the the albums tracks begin to follow the same basic structural patterns. Even though there is no real defined verse-chorus-verse structure to the songs it is replaced with tweak-groove-tweak template that makes the album seem slightly repetitive although the songs all sound relatively different.
Surprisingly, one of the standout aspects of
One Hand for the Knife, One Hand for the Throat is the vocal performance as it is just as charged and maniacal as the surrounding music. Unlike many extreme metal vocalists, Simon Bishop's wailing scream drips of emotion. This is especially clear on slower tracks like "Jupiter Sheep Farm" where he alternates between spoken word and a reverb soaked bark that adds to the unearthly atmosphere of the track. When the band kicks into full gear, Bishop is prone to violent vocal spazz outs that bring to mind The Red Chord's Guy Kozowyk's deranged rants on
Fused Together In Revolving Doors.
Despite its awful name, Tangaroa's debut
One Hand for the Knife, One Hand for the Throat does a commendable job at combining two different sides of the technical metal spectrum. It successfully bridges the gap between the technical glitz and glamor of what the scene kids are trying to pass off as grindcore these days with the precision and intensity of more seasoned acts like Meshuggah and Burst.
