This isn't a bad album by any means it's technically sound with good production, has some great riffs and manages to inject a lot more dynamics than some other albums of its ilk. One of the reasons I like the vocal style in the death genre(s) is that they add more in terms of tonality and feel than anything else but my gripes with the higher range vocals diminish that effect here. It's a personal thing though, and in this style it's hard to make out most of the lyrics unless you're reading them while listening so take that with a pinch of salt. In this instance the subject matter and delivery is in the former camp but I find the writing a little clumsy the kind of "faux poetry" style that's adopted to give them a bit more emotive weight I suppose. I find most metal lyrics fall into two camps - taking themselves too seriously or being deliberately as dumb as possible. The ideas and themes aren't difficult to decipher and it's all very dark and reflective on the human condition as you might expect. That being said, they don't occupy much of the album I found the duo of Planetary Duality I/II and Xenochrist to be the most satisfying offerings on the album the sample on "Planetary Duality I" that starts things off is a little cliche but the riffs that follow are a perfect match for the subject and have enough space within and around them to really create an atmosphere. Of course, this could just be too challenging for my ears, but if I can get through a Messiaen symphony I should be able to digest this, right? Who knows. Chaotic switches between riffs and time signatures can be effective but here it's too much and I often couldn't latch on to anything long enough to "get" the bigger picture. Too often a brilliant idea is not given time to mature - it's a few bars and then on to the next riff which can, at times, fall short and leave you feeling cheated. I can't isolate one "filler" song, but each song has filler within it, which is immensely frustrating given the quality of some of the ideas in here. There are moments of greatness in pretty much every song (the muted passages in Coldly Calculated Design, the opening the Planetary Duality 1) but no one song manages to keep this going throughout. However, while there is a lot of variation and some dynamic shifts (kudos lads - too many tech metal bands stick the metronome on 200bpm an play whack-a-mole on the guitar strings for three minutes) the song-writing isn't consistent within songs. ![]() These usually comprise of clean guitars where keyboards come more into focus, or in lead guitar breaks with a similar ambient treatment taking centre stage over less prominent rhythm work, adding a bit more breadth to the sound. I say "sort of" as the album does take the occasional breath in the form of more ambient, atmospheric passages. For me, the album has an immediate momentum with "Prison Born" a frantic and pummelling opener which (sort of) sets the vibe for the rest of the album, aside from the title tracks, but I'll get to those. They take time to unfold, in other words. Albums like this are hard to digest in one listen - they are multi-layered, complex in both structure and harmony as well as being so fast in places you could sneeze and miss three riffs. ![]() It may be the desired effect but I find without that sense of aggression present in the lower growls it comes across a little too "theatrical", shall we say.Īside from the decent production, however, I haven't found the album as compelling on repeat listens as it was on the first "spin". The only complaint I have in this department are some of the higher growls, for instance on "Planetary Duality II" there's a doubling effect but the higher range part sounds muffled and almost whispered. In general, the album has a very clean production with all instruments nicely separated and audible in the mix. I find their presence in most productions to be overbearing and contrived - thankfully this has been scaled back here. Personally, I'm quite thankful of this - I've never been a big fan of synths in metal (particularly orchestral elements which tend to sound the most artificial, oddly enough). This album does contain some unusual effects throughout, but never strays far from the vast, crushing guitars and machine-like percussion. Where in Akeldama they made quite extensive use of familiar string and synth sounds, here they have simplified the pallet of sounds somewhat. ![]() ![]() For Planetary Duality, The Faceless have strayed from some of the production/instrumentation traits of their debut effort, Akeldama most noticeably in the keyboard department.
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