Monday, November 29, 2010

Death By Wrench

For the past couple of days I have been listening to Murder Construct. They have been labeled as a kind of grind/death super group, in the same way that last year Shrinebuilder was for doom metal. I think these collaboration have no pretensions of being touted as "super groups," but are really just a group of like minded friends who love playing spine-break music with just enough time on their hands.

Construct's line-up contain members of Exhumed, Cattle Decapitation, and Bad Acid Trip for anyone needing some meaty proof to warrant the hype. Their self titled EP is everything one would expect, extreme metal that makes your bone marrow quiver and all that good stuff. My favorite track is "End of an Error" where drummer Danny Walker builds up a stormy bridge on the toms before they all come together again to finish the kill.

But these extremes rarely surprise anyone who is familiar with the genre. Bands like Inhume and Last Days of Humanity have pushed all the qualifiers such uncompromising ends that their relevance is purely THAT, being the nastiest in a nasty neighborhood. While these extremes represent the edge of the spectrum, they are predictable and quickly assimilated.

And then there is a band like Flourishing. Yes, they also play death/grind, but it's the a less obvious approach that makes A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World one of the more intriguing metal listens this year. The crew is from New York, which explains their style of "later-years-death-metal riffs", but they are also willing to take some needling chances. Gorguts and Cynic did this maybe more than any other bands from a previous generation, and Flourishing guitarist Garett Bussanick (Wetnurse) seemed to have been taking notes. On "Fixture" all the chaos vaporizes in an instant and Bussanick slithers around in the free space in a way that recalls early Dillinger Escape Plan and Discordance Axis circa 2002. With all this said, this band comes off relavent in their own age.

This trio has a sound that's all their own, so don't get it twisted. Most of their EP is unquestionably extreme metal, with old-school production, and throws down plenty of musical chops. A Momentary Sense is a mutation with wire brush limbs. Check it out.