Review by Saxy S for Orbit Culture - Descent (2023)

I don't know what enticed Orbit Culture to begin their album with a constant pulsing of the Inception atom drop on "Black Mountain", but it sounded terrible and set a really bad first impression for their album, Descent. Unfortunately, the production blunders do not end here, as Orbit Culture are undoubtedly caught up in the metalcore/deathcore craze of blasting every instrumental part up to eleven on the soundboard, and letting all of the instrumentalists fight for their time in the spotlight. The percussion is severely overcooked; any time the double bass kick pedal takes shape, the sheer repetitiveness and rate at which they strike pushes everything else to the back. One moment that truly stuck out for me was during the second half of "From the Inside", which at first, I thought could be a pretty decent djent infused song. But then the softer bridge kicked in with this unsavory synth lead. This is followed by a return of the metal foundation, with vocals, and dueling guitar solos. It's just too much stuff going on and none of it is allowed to take center stage.

The albums length is also a big determent. Averaging five-plus minutes per song is not an inherent bad thing, but when more than half of them sound half cooked is when you know something is wrong. The album begins with "Black Mountain", which would have been okay if not for the Inception sound effects. Then both "Sorrower" and "From the Inside" are both over six minutes long, but the main idea ends after only four. That leaves Orbit Culture with another third of the song to fill in with other space. And, like in metalcore, that space is filled with an unrelated riff and an unprepared new melody. If you're band is going to do this, at least put in some effort to make the two parts work together. Otherwise, they just sound half-assed. When "Vultures of North", "Alienated" and "Descent" come on, they are stronger songs with good forms, okay melodies and a smaller collection of sounds conversing at the same time. The production is still hit-and-miss, but I'll take the positive songwriting over poor production.

But Orbit Culture keeps bringing back the patchy songwriting for the albums conclusion (and obnoxious instrumental choices) for the finale of the record and leaves this album feeling a little bit hollow. It's almost like the band wanted to try something more experimental, which I appreciate, but they didn't know how to do it well. Maybe this band should return to the basics of melodic death metal and really embolden their fundamentals before expanding further. I mean, they have already proven that they can with pieces of Descent, but now they need to bring them to the surface for a full album.

Best Songs: Vultures of North, The Aisle of Fire, Descent