Genre flooding is nothing new, since the very dawn of recorded music and likely even prior there has been surges and waves of certain styles pummelling the eardrums of listeners like an audible tsunami. Yet the prevalence of this is stronger now than ever before, we live now in an age whereby anyone can set up a record label. The internet as glorious and a powerful tool as it can be has equally become like a toilet clogged with excrement, naturally most are put off by the stench but there are some brave enough, or perhaps stupid enough (like myself) to dive in head first and find the hidden treasures, polish them off and attempt to show them to the world.
One such band who may well have been the subject of the initial flood of Death Metal popularity are Italy’s Electrocution. Formed in 1990 the band put out three demos which later resulted in the band grabbing the attention of Contempo Records to release their debut full length in 1993. The album was entitled Inside The Unreal and was one of the aforementioned gems of which I spoke. Perhaps even now it is overshadowed by its peers but none the less within the underground it remains a firm favourite, finding its way onto many a ‘top Death Metal albums’ list. The band eventually after a string of lesser known releases came to a breaking point. In 2012 they reformed and further in 2014 brought us a new full length Metaphysincarnation and following in that albums wake 2019’s Psychonolatry which we speak of today.
A band that lays dormant will no doubt be full of brimming ideas, each member is bound to brood upon the possibility of what might have been and so forth. So has much changed from the days of Inside The Unreal? There is still an apparent old school Death Metal tone to Psychonolatry that’s for sure but it is wrapped up in modern packaging and shipped to us through tired and generic ideals. The sound of this release is exactly as one might expect, pure yet average Death Metal. The guitars appear as the most intriguing point, Hallucinatory Breed even seems to have a sort of Gojira quality about it even if only fleetingly. This notion picks the album up a touch and helps to gain our interest. There is certainly a good heap of musical talent on display throughout that even verges upon the Technical Death Metal side.
Does this make for an interesting album? In the right context yes, I certainly enjoy the more Tech heavy aspects found namely within the guitars and bass but they are few and far between interspersed by periods of atypical Death Metal carnage that is like a myriad of destruction, and not the good kind. This leaves most of the more inspirational moments left for dead in the water. For lack of a better description I would define Psychonolatry as somewhere between old school Death Metal and modern Technical Death Metal which sounds like a perfect mix, yet the balance is uneven and needs fine tuning, but with a little extra Electrocution could become a band worth keeping tabs on.
All in all this isn’t a bad album but it builds you up and lets you down at an alarming rate, it is so close to being something worth raving about that it dwindles into a chore of a listen. If you’re looking for a starting point with this band then there really is no other substitute for Inside The Unreal. Equally if you’re looking to dabble in Technical Death Metal go in for some of the modern titans such as Obscura, Rivers Of Nihil and also anything from the label The Artisan Era. This is one of those Death Metal albums that will fade into obscurity, such as seems to be the legacy of Electrocution, perhaps they are unfortunate and just find their sound continuously crops up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(6/10 George Caley)
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