Review Summary: Mmm... Organic Hallucinosis...
*drools Homer Simpson style*
Early Decapitated is a great example of a band who kept displaying plenty of potential, but couldn't fully fulfill it, as their first three albums had tons of heaviness, but, besides a few choice songs, lacked in the oh-so-important
groove element. Yes, even death metal bands should have
some catchiness in their style, or else they become pretty unengaging, which is what Decapitated used to be. Fortunately for us, the band finally started writing music as catchy as it was punishing for Organic Hallucinosis; maybe exchanging former frontman Sauron for Covan re-energized 'em, or maybe they just decided it was time to evolve their sound for the better. But, whatever the hell it was, all that matters is Decapitated produced an inventive, intense, and riveting take on tech death with Organic Hallucinosis, one that I'm finding nigh-impossible to tear myself away from.
First off, as I stated in the introduction, Decapitated exchanged the heavy, but mostly rhythmically-flat songwriting of the old albums in favor of a new style that still has plenty of the same crunchy, brutal riffage we've come to expect from them, but with a new ebb-and-flow that also keeps things catchy all the way, ensuring that Hallucinosis never becomes uninteresting at any point.
The song structures here are also more consistently complex then ever before, with plenty of variation all throughout, but still flowing so naturally, so damn
confidently, that you never start wondering if Decapitated doesn't know what to do with their own tech-iness, which happened some times on the previous albums. The best way I can describe the overall songwriting here is if you took the heavy groove of Gojira, upped the speed and complexity on that, and then fused it with the choppy rhythms of Meshuggah, resulting in something very unique, and most importantly, completely f ucking awesome.
Performance-wise, every member is as tight as Vitek's drums, especially Vitek himself (R.I.P.), with playing that suits the style of Hallucinosis to a T, since he gives the most intense performance of his tragically-short career here. When you find yourself headbanging just to the
drum solo on "Day 69", you'll realize that the world truly lost a talent three years ago. But, the record certainly isn't all about Vitek, since all four members are working together as a single, unified entity, creating music that sounds like it's coming out of some twisted, malicious machine, one that can't take itself out of overdrive, and is on the verge of tearing itself right to shreds, but somehow still manages to keep it all together.
And, while Sauron was a serviceable death growler, he was certainly nothing more than that, and also quite unremarkable in the sea of Cookie Monster wannabes within the death metal world. He also muddled up his delivery too often, making trip after trip to the Metal Archives to discover the real lyrics a very unnecessary evil (I don't think I recognized a single English word on the Winds Of Creation material). So, it's a good thing that the band choose the less guttural Covan as a replacement, since his delivery is much clearer, and even when I can't make out the words exactly, I can usually hear things that
sound like words at least, so that's nice.
Covan's delivery is also much more nimble than Sauron's, which is fortunate considering the generally-fast tempos here, and also considering how Sauron sounded especially muddled and out his element whenever he had to speed up. So, after all that, what more can I really say for the new guy? Decapitated just lucked out by getting the right vocalist at the right time for this album.
Sound-wise, the brotherly (I assume) duo of Wojtek & Sławek Wiesławski gave Hallucinosis one of my favorite production jobs of any record, with an incredibly sharp, thick, crunchy rhythm guitar sound, but one that doesn't overshadow the punchy triggered drums or bubbling bass undercurrent at all. Songs-wise, every single one here is immensely distinct and satisfying, from the frantic, off-kilter vibe of "A Poem About An Old Prison Man", the absolutely relentless "Day 69" (which is one of my favorite songs ever), or the wrenching, whiplash-inducing bite of "Post(?) Organic". Tech death insanity has never sounded so good, and though the new line-up has some big shoes to fill when it comes to following Hallucinosis up, we should still all be rooting for 'em to match the very, very formidable standard that this one set. Until then though, I'll be getting my tech death on over and over and
over right here...
