Review Summary: Pure antichrist chaos top to bottom.
Blacktown, Australia’s, Thy Art is Murder are one of the heaviest hitting, most opinionated bands you will find on the scene today. They pounded themselves in with their EP, Infinite Death in 2008, around the time that similar bands like Chelsea Grin, Suicide Silence, and Bring Me the Horizon were coming in. These aussies, however hit harder than any deathcore act at the time. With their debut LP, The Adversary, from 2010, they went with vocalist CJ McMahon who brought even MORE power into the band. The album is a crushing mess of fast riffs, chugs, and gutteral vocals that leaves your face blasted in the end.
It begins with the ominous “instrumental” track, Unholy Sermons (which really has a language unknown to English speaking ears) that leaves the listener feeling slightly unsafe and, well unholy. This album doesn’t have much, if any, deviation from the sound that they establish right at the beginning with Soldiers of Immortality. The entire album is fast, crushing, and CJ delivers mostly low gutterals with the token high scream on most songs. The structure to each song is similar and gets predictable. There is a fast blast beat section, with a chugging riff, and then we get into the breakdown section. Again, there isn’t much deviation from this, which isn’t bad, it simply makes it harder to distinguish tracks; even for someone who has been listening to this album for over a year.
The riffs of the album are mainly extremely detuned riffs played on the bottom strings. They follow a typical deathcore pattern of open notes followed by a fast riffs played on some frets. My favorite riff, though it may be a little typical for deathcore, is the opening for Laceration Penetration. Breakdowns on here usually come with a vocal section, and fast choppy work from the guitar/drums (usually playing the same rhythm). Some standout breakdowns for me are on Flesh Oracle, The False Prophet, and The Adversary. The drums here are typically following the rhythm of the guitar or blast beating their way through a solo or verse, but there are definitely some standout moments. Specifically, the drum fills about mid way through the title track stand out to me as a nice break from the chaos for a few seconds. The solos are really nothing special whatsoever which is a little disappointing. A deathcore band with solos should at least make them interesting. They are simple and rehashed fast shredding with no real deviation.
The highlight of the album, for me, is CJ McMahon. CJ is one of my favorite vocalists, because he can deliver a brutal low scream, a piercing high scream, and he knows how to place it. He is better at the lows, so he uses it to his advantage and makes the chaos sound more chaotic. The high screams are perfectly placed for the most frantic sounding moments of the album. Overall this album is great. Though, it is hard to distinguish some tracks, and they tend to follow similar patterns, the album is a heavy, fun listen from start to finish.
Recommended Tracks: The False Prophet, The Adversary, Engineering the Antichrist, Coward's Throne
