First of all, this album is one frenzied mess of madness. This may annoy some but its the album's redeeming factor. From the start, the bass and pathetic attempt for some atmosphere is punctuated by screams and a total technical death metal assault that sounds so phenomenally crazy, it puts the relative mildness of recent technical wankers to shame. Not since Brain Drill have I heard anything this hard.
The pros: quite a few but one must begin with the drummer from hell, Flo Mounier. His performance is devastating, not even bothering to do anything rhythmic or new-school but just pounding with a definite ferocity that is exhilarating. Guitarists Jon Levasseur and Christian Donaldson are not very skillful guitarists (go listen to Sophicide for best new guitarist of 2012) but they do stay within the confines of the madness, managing to keep up the furious pace of Flo Mounier. They provide numerous jazzy interludes throughout the album, but rather than expand the horizons of the band's music, they act as breaks for a moment's respite from the chaos. All in all, the music section works well.
Now... the vocalist, for some reason, sounds like he's only doing pig squeals throughout the album. You can tell that he did not intend to do so, so this must be some production fault. Drums are overproduced, and depending on what you prefer, this may be very annoying. The bass by Olivier Pinard seems nearly pointless, meandering in its own atonal trajectories in and out of existence without providing a nice compliment with the guitars, as opposed to the 90s Death era where bass provided nice introspective balance between the guitar tones. Also, the song writing originality is almost zero, you wouldn't be able to distinguish any song from another.
This album is exhilarating, it is extreme, fierce and a much anticipated kick up the ass. But it is, songwriting-wise, still generic death metal. It will not topple my favourite death metal album of 2012 (Cannibal Corpse's Torture), but I will definitely be revisiting this for my next workout or when another idiot pisses me off.
★★★★☆ Good - Strong flow, immediately grabs you
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