FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY
The sea of Tragic Beasts NUCLEAR BLAST
Bludgeon brothers take a new approach to heaviness
Latecomers to
the deathcore party who became flag bearers due to a consistently brutish output, this New Jersey sextet showed they were willing to move beyond the standard dynamics of sinister riffs and humongous beatdowns on 2017’s The
Great Collapse. However, it only proved to be a teaser for the leap into the dark that is Fit For An Autopsy’s Nuclear Blast debut.
Though nowhere near as drastic a sidestep as Suicide Silence’s brave but maligned self-titled effort, the sheer amount of clean singing and reserved playing taking the place of growls and breakdowns is an alarming yet agreeable surprise. From the opening title track through Your Pain Is Mine and beyond, Joe Badolato’s sung vocals – more a harrowing wail than clean and melodic – add a far more atmospheric and emotional weight to proceedings, with the bounce of
Mourn and dramatic light-to-shade journey of the closing Napalm Dreams as much Deftones as they are death metal. The three guitarists add more styles to their repertoire, be it the bleak atmosphere on Mirrors and Unloved or the razor-sharp riffs and leads of No
Man Is Without Fear. Not that the band have forgotten how to bring the thunder, with the guitar scrapes and downtuned drops as weighty as a concrete rhino pile-on, but with so much happening elsewhere their impact is heightened to clinical, effective blows as opposed to outright thuggery. In-demand producer Will Putney ensures his own band get the best of his knobtwiddling knowledge, with every note sounding crisp and the overall sonic experience a massive tapestry.
Though they’ve traded in some of the immediacy of their genre’s hallmarks, The Sea Of Tragic Beasts is a deeper, more dexterous effort whose real impact is felt after several listens as it seeps its way in rather than trying to blow the doors down.
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FOR FANS OF: Whitechapel, Thy Art Is Murder, Suicide Silence ADAM REES