I’m surprised I’ve not heard of or stumbled across this US technical death metal band since they formed in 2010 and released a debut in 2012. Bands like this usually cross my path at some point during my trawls for new material. Reading through the extensive promotional information it turns out that the band’s name is taken from the band’s founder Eric Alper, only spelt backwards though I have pondered on how you would pronounce it. It is also clear from that information that the band has gone through the mill in terms of difficulties, including changes of band members and struggles with various emotional issues such as anxiety and depression. All of which leads into writing music that has feeling and passion especially when done from such a personal point of view. The band themselves seem to be perfectionists and have spent a lot of time in getting things absolutely right and let’s be honest technical death metal needs to be as surgically precise as possible or it just comes across as total chaos.

This third album of ultra tech brutality sees the band capitalising on the foundations laid down on their previous two albums which I’ve given a run through and takes things a step further to unleash this veritable firestorm of algebraic annihilation. With no intro to wean you in opener ‘Bloody-Tongued And Screaming’ detonates the album into life, the onslaught of blasted drums is blended to the riffing trickery and the swerving tempo dynamics. Similar to the likes of Obscura or Rivers Of Nihil the band makes use of copious riff changes and deluges of hooks to make the songs frenetic yet highly controlled.

The title track follows and here we get some progressive structuring on the initial start of the song, particularly from the phenomenal drum work of Joey Ferretti whose skill is colossal and ensures these songs are varied yet utterly battering. Weirdly the song has what I’d call a jazz like sequencing from the drums as the constantly evolving guitar work pivots around them. Old school tech death fans would probably name acts such as Necrophagist as a reference point which is true only this album seems a little more coordinated in approach which isn’t to denigrate the excellent stuff from Necrophagist, far from it.

The explosive ‘Living Hell’ has a corking riff after the intro section, the frenzied approach is extremely effective and is possibly one of the fiercest tunes on the album and contrasts with the eerie opening to ‘A Fine Manipulation’. The slower much denser riff and disembowelling vocal tone reeks of straight brutal death metal. As expected the song unfurls a relentless assault of riffs and hooks, none of which stay around for much longer than a few seconds at a time except when the band slows the tempos down a fraction.

I did like ‘The Helix Unravels’ due to its more straight up death metal styling initially only for any signs of that to be obliterated by the teeming tempo dynamics and inexorable riff deluges. In places it reminded me of Archspire, that seemingly relentless tornado of riffs and insane drum work coupled to the way the band so easily blends in various subtle atmospherics courtesy of the skilled guitar work. ‘Drag Yourself Along The Earth’ is the first tune to really offer something to raise your eyebrows above and beyond the technical expertise already shown as clean vocals adorn its start that have a similar tone to Åkerfeldt of Opeth. It works a treat and sends the song down avenues of progressiveness that are hinted on previous tunes but here the result is much more noticeable.

The machine gun start of ‘Inglorious Impunity’ is excellent, a battering sortie of drums and riffing that borders chaos in places but always controlled of course. Some of the riff changes have hints of latter era Death only played at ridiculous speeds. The Death like touch reappears on penultimate track ‘Transfixed On The Work’ though only briefly as the song shifts into a more Suffocation like vibe, saturated in lead work and piercing hooks. At over six and half minutes the closer, ‘Uncontrolled And Unfulfilled’ has clean vocals again and a much slower progressive ethos. Again it is like Opeth to some degree due to the clean vocal tone but also the much more melodic riffing that begins it. Ultimately the song shifts back towards the tech surges but I would say the song is more accessible in terms of melodies than previous tracks and whether this closer is an indication of where the band is going to go next only time will tell, but suffice to say ‘The Center That Cannot Hold’ is a textbook demonstration of how to write technical death metal without resorting to pointless trickery for the sake of it.

(8.5/10 Martin Harris)

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