I’ll be the first to admit that I only gave this a listen because it features a track with Karl Willetts on vocals. But I am certainly glad that I did, as the concept album that is ‘We Are The Parasite, We Are The Cancer’ is well worth listening to. Having the lyric and concept booklet that accompanied the promo certainly helped too, as it added plenty of clarification as to what was going on in every song, along with the protagonists involved.
What I really enjoy about the album is the different feels of the pace involved, as Lee James Appleton and Paul Alan Ryan-Reader’s guitars don’t always match Barnaby Joseph Monger’s drum timing and signatures.
Opening track “Patriarch” starts off slow and heavy, and doesn’t take very long to become extremely fast and heavy as the blasting begins. Stephen John Tovey’s vocals range from deep and guttural to rapidly spat out harsh rasps, which is what he employs immediately on “Embers from a Dying Son (Plague: Gula)” sounding like someone possessed by a scalded daemon, before reverting to the more tempered death roar.
Acoustic strumming and distant violins are replaced by a steadily chugging guitar riff soon joined by a soaring lead then an awesomely eerie choir on “Like Gods Departed (Plague: Acedia)” while the drums beat out a slow tattoo with the occasional fill for good measure. The song then ups the pace substantially as the groove really gets going.
The song I mentioned right at the beginning, featuring Karl Willetts as Mammon, is “Mantra XIII (Plague: Avaritia)” where his slow distinctive vocals work perfectly alongside Tovey’s raspier shouts as Satan.
The screeching false harmonics on “The Sky Is a Mirror (Plague: Luxuria)” make way for a buzzier guitar sound that plays along to the very tribal rhythm on the drums as the whispered vocals take on a chant-like quality.
“Idolatry of Self (Plague: Superbia)” is a short and punchy song where the rolling triplets keep things moving until the rather heady lead takes precedence.
Keeping the pace rather up-tempo with plenty of snappy snare strikes to complement the excellent footwork is “As Vermin Swarm (Plague: Ira)” where it does slow down towards the end with soaring guitars and boomy tom rolls.
The sustained guitars initially play second fiddle to the driving rhythm of Ceri Monger’s bass on “GodFrost (Plague: Invidia)”, but they move to the fore as the machine-gunned triplets on the snare keep time for the roared chorus.
Having covered the 7 Deadly Sins we now have “The Burden of Their Scars” where mankind whines about our raw deal and lack of choices in this the slowest and heaviest song on the album.
While I may have chosen to listen to this album for a reason unrelated to the band itself, I can assure you that The King Is Blind have a new fan in me.
(8/10 Marco Gaminara)
https://thekingisblind.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-the-parasite-we-are-the-cancer
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