ANOMALIES

Cephalic Carnage are a band that are difficult to digest for a number of reasons. For avant- garde and experimental music fans, it's probably the heaviness. For the metal fans, it's the crazy atonal sections and bombast of the songs. For syphonic prog fans it's all of the above, and for the mainstream public it's pretty much everything aout this band. They are very heavy, very technical and very... weird. But please, don't let those facts put you off. If you are up for the challenge succeed in the challenge and emerge out the other end and start apreciating the music for it's little subtleties, then you will find Cephalic Carnage one of the most rewarding bands on the scene.

Anomalies for me is a great album, with flaws and more importantly with absolutely fantastic moments. This takes a more aggressive, choppier and overall more disciplined approach than the previous masterpiece Lucid Interval, and actually vears more into the death metal territory as well. That's the thing: there isn't that much grind here, so don't dive in expecting any. It's just really brutal, heavy, mindbogglingly complex death metal to me. A perfect example would be the song Counting The Days (pobably my favourite off the album actually). The song doesn't give in and pummles the listener into submission with violent technicality. It flits between passages before anyone can take a breath, with only the small accappella guitar sections to root it into the ground.

Now if you are into that kind of stuff (like me), then you will get endless enjoyment. If you are not... then try it anyway. This may turn into a new thing for you, but I am not promising you will enjoy it.

As far as actual songwriting goes, it's very accomplished. They've had three albums of experience under their belt at this point, and it seems that they have taken all the trippy, pretentious ideas used on Exploiting and Lucid Interval and sculpted them, watered them down and brought them all together to make a fast paced, crisp album tht actually is their most accessible work to date. That is in fact the only beef I have with this album (there are no more spacey jazz sections and atonal musical masturbation sessions anymore), but I will not let it deteriarate from the rating.

Musicianship is top notch without a doubt. These guys are possibly the tightest you can find on the market (especially the rhythm section), and Lenzig Leal is especially experimental with his vocals. You get screams, death growls, low pig squeels and the half growl, half singing style found in Gojira's songs in the package, and sometimes all in one song (check out Ontogeny of Behaviour). Definitely worth looking out for. The guitar lines are ever virtuose and there is no fault in them at all. 10/10 for the playing.

I think overall this is a very good progressive metal album. A bit too commerciallised for my liking (I much prefer the older, avant-garde atonal influenced days of Cephalic Carnage), but there is without a doubt something here for metal fans. NOT a masterpiece (the last song is a masterpiece on its own however), but a great album nonetheless. 4/5 from me.