Dirty dirty dirty! Bad dog on your bed! This is pretty filthy stuff from Transcending Obscurity – as one would expect. Though the bands moniker sounds like a knock off Minecraft Rather than block combining and mad youtubers what you get is half an hour of gnarly deathgrind from Germany.
Hybrid subgenres are tricksie – how many blastbeats decide which side of the dividing line a track sits at. If you read “Choosing Death – the improbable history of Death Metal and Grindcore it is evident that the two extreme genes have grown up together with lyrical content and political motivation tending to often be the main divider. Ah I am digressing way too much here – back to Solar Temple. With no lyric sheet available I am left to the titles to ascertain the message that Terra Builder seek to impart on my shell likes – and it appears, that much like the news in recent weeks, space and the cosmos appear to be up-front and centre.
Opening with “End of Orbit”, Terra Builder starts with some feedback and a dirty noisy riff before opening into a blistering Black Metal sequence with hellish rasped vocals from Renne Wichmann backed by the low end growls of guitarist of Tobias Buck. The song progresses into the deathy chugcore which is going great guns with crowd-killers throughout the world – and old farts like me I might add.
Terra Builder have taken the sound of Nasum and latter day Napalm Death and added in bits of early Haunted and plenty of modern slam chugs to get the pulse racing/
The vocals are pure bark/growl death metal though – no piggy noises or hardcore shouts. Interplanetary portal has a glorious section that would have the kids walking in circles waving their fingers in the strange modern Death Metal cub scout salute and has me clutching at oranges (rather than my pearls).
Constant Cosmic Failure whizzes in like a frog in a blender (no amphibians were harmed in the writing of this review) and then hurtles off like a cheap fairground ride, lurching this way and that speeding up and slowing down before jerking you in completely the opposite direction and throwing in a quick blister inducing solo and blast beat combo. Latter day Carcass sprung to my addled brain.
Abyss which follows manages to feel both stark and spacey (think Thorns) and utterly earthy and dirty (think Worm) at the same time, the time changes work well and make me wish for more of both the blast and the mid-paced rumble.
I have been reading Shane Embury’s auto biography this week which has made me revisit Napalm Deaths colossal output. I bring this up because as the album continues, I start to see the influence of the Brummie (well originally) bashers writ through the album. Wichmann’s vocal patterns often follow the short sharp delivery that Barney used on the most recent album and the music has that Napalm Death “feel”. That is in no way to say that Terra Builder are copyists, but merely, that having re immersed myself in recent Napalm releases I am noticing welcome similarities.
It may sound verbose or even crass to make this comment but there is a sense of intelligence in this album. So much extreme music is attempting to be primitive now and reduce tracks to raw emotion – which I gotta say I love. There is nothing like being bludgeoned by some caveman metal but sometimes I like to be wooed by a scientist goddammit.
Terra Builder are like The Hulk when he gets stuck between states – Mr Fixit is it Marvel fans? They can give it like a Luddite but there is a sense of method in the madness.
The album continues to bore its way though my ear canals from the big drum filled industrial crunch of Solar Temple through the chaotic frenetic guitars of Dead Celestial. Blasters on BLAST! Total Overcome which follows feels almost doom-like in comparison but crushes with Broadrick style concrete grooves. Carbon Based Misery reminds me of Belfast’s dirty sludge bastards 7.5 Tonnes of Beard – just so much heavy and the guitars sound so bleak and foreboding it is almost overwhelming.
“There is no wrong. There is no right! “ so starts closer Cryogenic Sleep – I thought this may be soporific and doomy – nah it’s midpaced grindy with flurries of absolute madness. Certainly not what Walt Disney paid his millions for. The Melo death solo is a little over wrought but I got back on board quickly.
Terra Builder have produced a blistering album of space themed chaos that burst from the speakers like a Xenomorph.
(8.5/10 Matt Mason)
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