THE MOTHER OF VIRTUES

"The Mother of Virtues" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US extreme metal act Pyrrhon. The album was released through Relapse Records in April 2014. Pyrrhon was formed in 2008 and originate from Brooklyn, New York. They released their debut full-length studio album "An Excellent Servant but a Terrible Master" in 2011.

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.