Atrocity - Hallucinations
Review: Zealously rudimentary and violent death metal forms its essential ideals within the space of raw thunderous power chords in architectural assembly of connective phrasing concluding in arduous, tense, nihilistic tonal acclimatization through mood manipulating atmosphere in chromatic, shuddering conclusive riffing. The first work by Atrocity as their simplest and most direct carries a primal nature of opposition to the motifs bearing elements of its concept, a clumsily taped-on justification about drugs and death.
Structured in straightforward circular patterns of varying sizes and rhythmic or melodic hooks, songs evolve to final motifs through a serrated linear representation of layers of motion. Riff salad support often sustains tension through a series of risky jumps and grabs at inertia of melodic expectation as connected to emphasis in percussive inflection, and in delighted ambition captures space with excellent instrumentalism and tightly executed arrangements emphasizing structure through synchronicity in instrumental discovery of theme.
Textures in layers uncover realms of motion potential in the space of these simple heavy riffs and their contraposition as components of phrasing revealing a narrative in song. Despite a predisposition toward dynamic rhythmic suspension within sustained momentum (the dumbest and most trivial technique in metal) during transitions of relevance the composition at the tactical level here is refined riffwriting of the oldest school in metal, making nihilistic and often chromatic tonal progressions adapt to a rhythmic structure to form a fusion in phrasing that illustrates the shape of motion through a tonal space defined in difference through the introduction of the riff.
Pounding and relentless, death metal rawness in sound and form impacts structure with a churning, dead yet organic drive that explodes into potential as its significance is slowly being realized; understood in the abstract, this music is perfect clarity, and although in the sensual world the listener may be baffled by its geometrical abstraction of tempo and architecture in phrase rendering to riff, its silvery intricate self-referential allusions of structure in lead guitar and vocal foreshadowing present evident clarity and wisdom as each song develops.