FROM WISDOM TO HATE

GORGUTS decided to let the creation of their new musical language on the unique and bizarre "Obscura" to speak for itself and only take some of the ideas they came up with on that release and fuse them with some of the more accessible sounds they developed on their first two releases. FROM WISDOM TO HATE is their 4th album and does just that. It basically takes the accessible traits of their early albums such as more recognizable rhythms and brutal harmonies and marry them with some of the dissonance and strangeness of "Obscura." The result is a middle-of-the-road sounding album that works quite well. In addition to these two styles merging, Luc Lemay and his band add some touches of atmosphere to the compositions giving them a slicker feel but never compromising the brutal monstrous feel of the metal itself.

The 4th track "The Quest For Equilibrium" stands out because the intro has a particular orchestrated movie soundtrack feel before bursting into the furious tech death metal. This is new for the band and wouldn't be fully realized until the track "The Battle Of Chambo" on their 2013 "Colored Sands" release. This would also be the one and only album for drummer Steve MacDonald who would succumb to depression and take his own life causing the band to call it quits.

I find this to be a very high quality release from GORGUTS which manages to successfully fuse the past with new ideas and make an album that is not only less alienating than "Obscura" but respectfully let that album stand on its own instead of releasing another album just like it. Since Lemay and bassist Steve Cloutier are the only musicians to play on both albums it was probably easier to create a new sound. After disbanding Lemay would team up with Steeve Hurdle (guitarist on "Obscura") to join the band Negativa after which they would release its one EP in 2006.