I wanted to like the album because it had a cool name and cool artwork and a concept I was onboard with. I liked some of the composition of the music, blending hardcore punk motifs with the black/death metal aesthetics. The way it was presented just left a lot to be desired.

The only thing of substance I found on the album was the bass playing. The guitar was buried in the bass frequencies leaving those chuggy patterns not juicy but just muddled. The bass drum I could not hear at all because it was lost in the bass frequencies of the guitar and bass. The snare was not very present either. The only thing I could hear clearly in the high end was the bell of the ride, occasionally. The vocalist seemed to only have one mode that could be labeled “this is generic black metal”.

So, if I were mixing and mastering this album, I would have separated the instruments in frequency more so each instrument felt more distinct. If I lead this band, I would have hired a more dynamic vocalist. The overall feeling I got was like listening to “war metal” meets Slayer solos and generic black metal vocals. Even the chaotic solos felt contrived and did not really stand out. The chaos of the riffs could not be appreciated because everything blended together from around 50hz to 1.5khz.

Kudos to them for the dedication of writing such an album because I know getting through that much material is hard. I feel most strongly that the mastering engineer just didn’t care, was hung over, or straight up dropped the ball. Maybe they wanted the perception of the album to be unintelligible with a muddy low end? But that’s kind of a stretch. The only way for me to truly appreciate this album was to physically boost the high ends because otherwise, there was no separation of the instruments.

2/10

About the Author’s Biases:
Sage is a producer and musician who does not tolerate laziness in music. Get it together, producers of the world.