ALGOPHOBIA

Algophobia play a technical/progressive death metal style influenced by artists like Atheist, Cynic, Pestilence, and their fellow countrymen in Sadist. The music features tempo- and time signature changes, aggressive snarling vocals, busy bass playing and jazzy soloing. Algophobia are well playing and the music is quite intriguing but seldom original when compared to the music of their influences. Out of the above mentioned influences they remind me the most of Sadist.

"Algophobia" is overall a pretty great debut release by Algophobia, despite not being that unique sounding. Had they stayed together they might have come up with a more original sound down the road. Because that´s what they lack here to evelate them from good to great. The musicianship is strong, the sound production relatively well sounding, and the songwriting pretty solid, but that´s about it. The album should however still appeal to fans of the 90s technical/progressive death metal sound. Just don´t expect the music to be as unique sounding as those who inspired it. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

Shortly after the wave of excellent forward-thinking US death metal in the early '90s, there was an inevitable backlash of bands attempting to copycat the originals. The bands I am speaking of who innovated what we now know as the progressive death metal scene are now legends, with Atheist and Death first coming to mind. Algophobia is an Italian reaction to this Florida-based death metal scene, a strong group of musicians playing a familiar style in tribute. Their technical proficiency aside, it should not come as much of a surprise that while quality is evident in the band's performance, Algophobia's self-titled debut doesn't come across as much more than a clone of acts that frankly did it better the first time around.

Algophobia is a word that refers to the pathological fear of pain, so it seems we are in death metal territory here, alright. The band plays a slightly melodic brand of technical death metal, not as overbearing and triggered as modern tech death, but maintaining a ferocious musical proficiency to it. The influence of jazz music is implied in the groovy bass licks and frantic rhythms of the band. In this sense, Algophobia are taking a nod from Atheist, and that is the band whom these Italians seem to be emulating the most. As is entailed with the tech death style, the musicians are all fantastic, and quite tight as an act. The music is fairly unrelenting, and there is not much diversity, save for a solo or schizoid melody firing through the speakers here and there. Algophobia is playing very able death metal here, but one thing that deters from the listen is the production. I certainly prefer an organic studio job almost any day over something mechanical and triggered-sounding, but on 'Algophobia', the mix is very muddy, and this becomes quite a problem when you take into account the fact that the musicians' performances are being obscured and robbed of their details. The sound is chaotic, and while the production does take away from what could have been a better album, the band's energy and technical virtue keep them interesting.

Of course, interesting does not always mean 'original', and Algophobia certainly do not explore new grounds with this. Instead, it's as if they are trying to mirror the glory of Atheist, addressing most every detail in that band's sound. Even down to the higher pitched rasp of Luizio Dezi, everything feels like Algophobia are trying to recreate Atheist's 'Unquestionable Presence', sans the softer jazz moments. To a degree, the band does manage to pull this off, as the comparison between this and Atheist can be made within seconds of listening to the music. As one might guess, the disciples do not outdo the innovators, and despite the prowess of its musicians, Algophobia's self-titled is left sounding like an obscure grandchild of 'Unquestionable Presence'.

This album created a bit of a stirr when released at the end of the last century. Algophobia's blend of technical death metal and rock'n'death was refreshing back then. In the years afterwards, we have seen the growth of a pretty big technical death metal scene and they have even been admitted access to our good archives.

Algophobia reminds me a lot about the first Atheist album and that's where we find this band. A bit melodic and very technical at the same time. The music here is not particular great, but never really bad either. It has not survived the test of time though. This is a decent album and nothing more, I am afraid. The sound is not that great either and a lot of textures has been lost in the translation from the instruments to the finished record. A decent album, nevertheless.

2 stars