PYRRHON

The band was founded all the way back in 2008 when guitarist Dylan DiLeila and bassist Mike Sheen met by happenstance on a subway platform and then found drummer Alex Cohen to join the crew. Along the way they found Doug Moore to join in as vocalist. While PYRRHON has in recent years upped their game and joined the ranks of the more known ranks of the tech death metal universe alongside other surreal noisemakers such as Portal, Ulcerate or Mithras, on FEVER KINGDOMS they take a rather generic sounding approach with a sound that somehow finds itself somewhere between death metal with the gutteral growls and frenetic angular riffs but with more of a mathcore in yer face grind that churns on relentlessly in full extreme metal fashion.

While these elements are not that bad within themselves, this EP unfortunately lacks any sort of variety or attention grabbing ideas. And along with that, i find the drumming style of Alex Cohen a little lackluster for the type of tech death they are trying to capture. Another band that is similar is Gigan who master the surreal and detached psychedelic metal sound that they strive to create. In their case the musicians are bombastic and unapologetically ferocious and have the chops to pull it off as well as an imagination that allows a flexibility that is needed for the cosmic metal ride. FEVER KINGDOMS seems to just plod along predictably with each of the five tracks sounding alike with the same riffs recycled.

What it boils down to with PYRRHON's debut is that something is woefully missing to give this sonic noise parade some sort of spirit. It plods along checking off all the boxes of extreme tech metal but doesn't deliver in anything that is very satisfying. In the tech death universe where sonic maelstroms can easily resemble any other, the differences are very subtle and the tight wire act between something outstandingly original and woefully cliche and lackluster can be a very small margin of differences and in the case of PYRRHON's FEVER KINGDOMS falls short of the interesting mark and leaves me quite unsatisfied especially after experiencing their more mature albums first.

2.5 rounded down

"Running Out of Skin" features 4 tracks and a full playing time of 16:25 minutes. Stylistically the material is in a technical, very extreme, chaotic, and dissonant sounding extreme metal style. Pyrrhon may at one point have been rooted in death metal, but while this certainly is extreme, there are actually very few death metal traits left in the band´s music on "Running Out of Skin". The vocals are for example not growling, but rather a very extreme and distorted raw type of shouting. Pyrrhon suck you into their noisy and chaotic extreme metal universe, which feels both unpleasant and almost claustrophobic yet intriguing. At times it almost sounds like free-form avant garde, which may not be as far from the truth as it sounds, as the material on "Running Out of Skin" was recorded live in the studio. I´d be interested to hear how much of the music was planned ahead, and if any sections were improvised.

The band are arguably very well playing and obviously know how to handle their instruments, but the extremety of the material and what appears to be floating structures are probably going to be an obstacle for some. Personally I find "Running Out of Skin" more intriguing than enjoyable, but if you think you can enjoy this type of extreme experiment, you´re certainly in for a wild ride with this release. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

The music on "The Mother of Virtues" is chaotic sounding and dissonant extreme metal. Acts like Gorguts (Colin Marston has mastered the album, so there is a further reference there) and Ulcerate come to mind. There are occasional more atmospheric post metal sections on the album, but the music is predominantly noisy and dissonant. It's generally a very challenging listen, and would probably prove a serious trial to those sensitive to dissonance. While there are growling vocals on the album, which leads to a death metal reference, this is not as such death metal. The dominant vocal style is higher pitched and more screaming aggressive hardcore type vocals and while that doesn't make the music on "The Mother of Virtues" metalcore or deathcore by any means (if that's what you think), there are pretty strong hardcore leanings on the album.

"The Mother of Virtues" features 9 tracks and a full playing time of 54:40 minutes, which is a really long playing time considering the harsh and abrassive nature of the music. Several of the tracks are also longer than 6 minutes in length and it's hard not to get dizzy and quite frankly a bit panic stricken after listening to something this cacophonous for that long. Listeners accustomed to dissonance and adventurous song structures should have less issues with that though.

As mentioned the music is very aggressive in nature, but there is also a dark atmospheric edge to it, which reeks urban decay and post apocalyptic landscapes. The band are very well playing and the album features a raw and professional sound production which suits the music well. While Pyrrhon occasionally take their music down to a more atmospheric level and thereby successfully incorporate breathers at various spots during the album's playing time, they really go all in with the extreme dissonance and rawness for the remaining part of the album, and while dissonance usually doesn't bother me at all, this is an album I have found very hard to appreciate. If you compare "The Mother of Virtues" with the best works of contemporary and somewhat similar styled artists like the above mentioned, the songwriting does lack something to reach the heights of the most prolific acts on the scene. Still "The Mother of Virtues" does come off as a quality product and the songwriting is generally on a decent level so a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.