ZeroSymbolic7188's Reviews

This is mediocrity in audio form. I have nothing good to say about it, I have nothing bad to say about it. It simply exists. No seriously, I am going backward now through my reviews and trying to do better justice to the albums in the modern death metal era, and I have absolutely nothing for this. It makes heavy metal noises, so that's good, but I listened to it two days ago from beginning to end, and I can't remember a damn thing about it. 

This is an odd one for me, because it has a lot of elements that I like; foreboding atmosphere, orchestral elements, and death metal, and yet there is something amiss. I was looking forward to this one because on prior playlist I enjoyed the hell out of EEONTPON. I'm going to chalk it up to me being a doom-head at heart. There is a lot to like here, and I may revisit it one day, but on the day of this review I'm just not quite connecting to it. 

Earlier today I reviewed an album by Mercenary where I stated that it was pretty much perfect, I just longed for a little more brutality.

Scar Symmetry comes out with this and delivers a similar experience except this time it's a little heavier, and we get harsher vocals, so this is perfect! I would explain the sound of this album and it's subject matter to be a heavier, and darker version of Fear Factory's output. I introduced this album to a friend of mine who is getting his metal 101, and loves Fear Factory. He loves this too. I love this, and would hope you give it a shot to fall in love with as well. It's Pitch Black Perfection!

Portal is an experimental noise band steeped in atmosphere.  

What is that atmosphere? Imagine Night of the Living Dead, but replace all the Zombies with mind flayers from the Dungeons and Dragons Universe, with Cthulhu himself lurking in the skies above. 

It is not an atmosphere I particularly care to visit but if it does tickle your fancy I can't say that anything else really sounds like this. Hear it at least once, and then make your own decision. I'm good. 

It's Nile, so it's tech-death in Egypt. Anyway Nile is an institution and you either like them or you don't, but they sound the same every time. They don't really do it for me personally, so I'll put my review dead center at 2.5 out of respect. I'm probably not the guy you want to get your Nile critique from. 

What you get here is an excellent offering that has no skips. Everything about this is near perfect. The production is crystal clear and the mix has space for everybody to shine, and shine they do. These songs are heavy and catchy. 

So why not 5 stars? It's the vocals for me. They are well done so don't get the wrong idea, but they are  very much inspired by power metal, and that's not my cup of tea. I would have liked something just a little bit more brutal, but this is absolutely knit-picking on my part. 

Definitely give this a listen, it's not the heaviest thing on earth, but it's still an absolute banger.

Yes they can play very fast and technical. No they cannot write music I actually want to listen to. I did that thing where I give it a second listen to make sure I understand what tech-death sounds like... Yup still don't like it 10years and going strong. I lowered it a half a point for having wasted my time for twice as long now.

Borrowing from other in an attempt to stretch this one out. 

Daniel writes; " if you love highly technical, complex & precise yet still extreme metal then "Feeding The Abscess" should be a no-brainer."

--Notice how all of that speaks to the speed and ability of the musicians, but absolutely no emotional reaction to the music? 

Unhindered writes; "Overall it doesn't work for me", then awards it 4 and half stars. Why?

In the year 2025, the internet is full of fast, technical musicians, simply being fast and technical is not as special as it once was, and it never was as special as writing a good song. There are no good songs on this album.

I'm going to echo the other review here; this is an album that should have been very special. It is sincerely trying damn hard, I don't know exactly what it is trying do since it doesn't succeed but there is something here that just never quite comes to fruition, and I think the problem is the production... Yup that's it. This is good music but it's ruined by production boardering on sabotage. Consider my 2.5 Star rating to be an A for effort, but it's a frustating listen and that's why I can't recommend it in good faith. 

I don't even like real Opeth, and this is a big step down from real Opeth. The NOPE for me with this one is the overcompressed production, the crash cymbals bleed over everything. It sounds like something from 99-2000 not 2008. 

This is either a poor man's Deicide or a poor man's Morbid Angel. Take your pick, but it's poor either way. There is absolutely no reason to listen to this when you could be listening to anything from the Deicide or Morbid Angel discography. Further more, it's worth noting that I love OSDM so much that I drove from Detroit to Tampa Florida just to tour Morrissound Studios. Morbid Angel and Deicide are my least favorite bands from that time and place. I'm told that Glen Benton still has a house down there but the man at the record store couldn't tell me which one. Anyways you got that story instead of a review, because I truly have nothing of value to add. 

Disclaimer; I originally reviewed several of these modern death metal albums in a row, and was fatigued when I got here. My original review was brief and agitated; 

"As I work through this list I am really running out of fun ways to say "great musicianship, horrible music", but here we are again."

However, a couple esteemed users here, including Ben (site founder along side Dan if you didn't know) felt that such a brief and dismissive comment was disrespectful given the reputation of this album and band. Therefore I dedicate this review to Ben, and I do so with 100% pure love for my brother in heavy metal, but also with 100% pure hate for this album. I love you so much that this will be my most in depth review of an album so far, and probably for a while. If this reads as odd or as passive aggressive, it is not meant to-the long story short is that I have no family, they were all extremely disfunctional or have died. Heavy Metal is my family, not in a ManOwaR cheese sense, but in a very real sense to me, even if we disagree about things like this album and I am attempting sincerity.

Without further or do. My extended review of Gorguts-Colored Sands.

BOX ART: We have a vaguely cloaked figure, or maybe two of them the top pair is holding beads and the hands are in a prayer position. The bottom set of hands appears to be bound by some dainty rope. This figure is posed atop a pyramid, or maybe a village in the shape of a pyramid-there is not enough detail to be for certain, and yet to me it looks like things I've seen associated with the Aztecs. Then of course there is a bunch of sand, but it's definitely not colored. The color pallette here is black, white, grey, and piss. Maybe it's a piss filter over a black white and gray drawing. The band name sits proudly in the upper left hand corner in band logo font, yet the album title is spread across the bottom in some of the most generic font man kind has ever seen.  
Now my user name is ZeroSymbolic, and in addition to that being a reference to Chuck Schuldiner's Death, it is also a bit of an in joke I have with myself. The gag is that at a glance it appears to be some real deep shit "Zero Symbolic what does that mean?" Well, it doesn't mean jack shit-there is Zero, meaning none, Symbolism, meaning greater meaning-literally says "there is no greater meaning".
That's what this album cover is to me- a whole lot of shit that is supposed to make you think because it has vague religious connotations, but it doesn't actually say anything about religion. Is this figure a victim? A devotee of some ancient cult? Who knows? Who gives a fuck? I don't. If it does have some deep radical meaning that I am missing, that might be an indicator of why I don't gravitate to this sort of thing. I'm in death metal to bang my head to brutal drumming, blazing fast riffs, and listen to some dude gargle on about zombies and eating flesh, and zombies that eat flesh, and zombies that eat zombies. I'm not going to church here-so don't preach to me. I'm not going to school either-so don't try to educate me. 

BACKGROUND: I hop over to the wikipedia page now and get some background. Main takeaways are as follows.
*Canadian Technical Death Metal: It's gonna be a bunch of obnoxious wanking with no connectivity. 
*5th full length album, but only the 2nd studio album there is about a decade between this and the first: That's kinda fucky aint it?
*New Guitarist, New Bassist, New Drummer. Drummer leaves after this album: Oh yay an inconsistent rhythym section. This is what every bassist looks forward to hearing. BTW notice there are 4 people in this band. 3 are new.
*Band members left previous bands because they were "uncomfortable with the improvisational elements in that band's music."-They can't Improvise. 
*Everybody is technically impressive and classically trained. They enjoy "working out very specific ideas in micro-detail."- They like to jack each other off, in a musical sense I mean.
*Concepts: No Slayer beats, no fast picking riffs. We are "creating a new musical language."-I am a fan of Motorhead, Venom, and Kiss. Fuck off with this.
*Something something Tibetian sand symbol that is ritualistically destoyed... somehting something Tibetian shooting tragedy... something something.... I can't be assed.
*Let's throw an Orchestral piece in the middle for the fuck of it.-Could we possibly be more pretentious with this? That's what Death metal needs, an orchestral interlude. I was  just listening to "Eaten back to Life" and thinking to myself "This is pretty good, but can I get a fucking string ensemble in here?"

...
And after all that, it sounds exactly the way I thought it would. It's over an hour of pretentious musicians masturbating their instruments in the name of high art, because they just can't write a fucking song with a hook. 30minutes of boring shit, an orchestrial piece that doesn't belong, and another 30 minutes of boring shit. 

I don't know how many times I've been forced to listen to this trash, and other garbage that sounds just like it, but I do know that I hate it more each and every time. This fake-deep, high art,  technical arms-race, unlistenable crap, because "we are the educated metalheads, we are classically trained serious musicians, not those dumb fucking beer guzzling caveman metalheads."

Let's get this straight, Black Sabbath was four working class men who set out to write music for the working class, and to scare people, somewhere along the line some of us lost the plot and thought heavy metal was about how complicated the music could be, how fast you could play it, and how much you could impress the masses. For me it isn't about any of those things. It's about being geniune to yourself. If you are hanging your musical hat on concepts like "improvisation makes me uncomfortable, and I must micro-compose the fine details of my music." I think it speaks to not being comfortable in your own skin. 

I do not  know the men in Gorguts, they may be fantastic lads, but this breed of high art heavy metal always carries a smug air about it that rubs me the wrong way. Luc Lemay refers to the music as "Intellectual-Death Metal". It's very difficult for me to shake the idea that he's implying other kind of Death-Metal, or metal in general is not intellectual. 

They probably don't like my shit either, and you know what? That's OK, because there is room for all of us under the metal umbrella. I hope they sell a billion albums, and I hope I don't have to listen to any of them.

Fun fact: I didn't think I gave a fuck about this album. My wife informs that I gave about 20 here. THE MORE YOU KNOW.

A wise man named Mick Mars, may or may not have once said, "Shitty name, shitty band." Funebrarum is a shitty name. I'll leave you to connect the dots.

Continuing Round 2 of "just give it a chance to cook", still hating it. What to do? I can't lower it any further. I'll spin my wheel of review filler topics, because more is always better right?

Funebrarum Fun Facts:
*They are from New Jersey, that's one thing they have in common with Bon Jovi. They other is that I hate his music too!
*The members of this band are former members of over 40 other Death Metal bands.
*Kyle from Incantation has a Mustache-not a Funabrarum fact, but a related artist fact. That's how much I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel to say something here. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

This is a Mediocre Dying Fetus offering. A Mediocre Dying Fetus offering is however, still better than many other things. Thus I award 3 rather than 2.5. Disappointing is the word. Dying Fetus are awesome, and this album has all the usual traits of their music, and yet it just isn't as fun or catchy as others. 

The music is somehow worse than the album cover. Yes really!

2nd Attempt: 

Wikipedia says
"The band consists of four balaclava-wearing individuals who perform with their backs to the audience, often accompanied by candles, a single stroboscopic light, and large amounts of smoke." 

So their live presentation sucks too I guess? I wonder what they charge for tickets. I tried sincerely to find but was not able to. The question is how much would you pay to see a band literally turn their backs to you and play behind smoke to a single strobe? I wouldn't pay anything for it, and I wouldn't pay this band for music or merch either, but I have already paid. TWICE now with the most precious resource of all-Time. I would like to declare bankruptcy and move on now.

Opening track is full of harsh noise and feedback. Your reward for enduring this? Below average Death Metal.

Have you heard death metal before? Great. Take that sound, now imagine it in the most generic possible presentation. Now make it worse with super muddy production. That is the sound of this album. This is the Nickleback of Death Metal. People who do like this album describe it as having Morbid Angle vibes. I think that is an insult to Morbid Angel, and even if I didn't it will still beg the question; why don't I just listen to Morbid Angel instead?

Bad Death Metal featuring the snare sound from St. Anger! Seriously the snare sounds like it is trying to bore a hole in my skull. It's painful, and he's gonna smack it as hard and often as possible. If the point is to inflict pain upon the listener it was certainly achieved, so there's that.

"but Zero, it's supposed to be challenging".

I have a challenge for you, describe this album cover without sounding like the business card scene from American Psycho.
"Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God, it even has a watermark..."

Yet, upon research a lot of people actually do like this, and consider it an important part of the Gothenburg sound. I don't like melodic death metal. I like my death metal brutal in lyrical and sonic quality and usually of the Floridian variety, so maybe this just isn't for me. I didn't find anything enjoyable within, and I maintain that the album cover is hella boring-not the most important thing, but also not hard to get right either. 

Incredible musicianship. Bad vocals. Awful Production. Love that album art though!

I very nearly bought this when it came out. I remember it in the metal section of FYE, and I was picking up random albums based on the album covers. My usual strategy was to buy something I was familiar with, and something I'd never heard that looked cool. On that particular day it came down to either this or Cattle Decapitation's Monolith of Inhumanity. I was going to see Cattle open for Cannibal Corpse in a week or two, so Monolith won out. This album art always stuck with me, though and I actually tried to find it again a few times to no avail. I imagined what it would sound like-maybe like a modernized version of Voivod, or some kind of grind core with alien style vocals and themes. Alas it's just aimless technical wanking, and that's disappointing.

This is pretty awesome, a great blending of my favorite elements of death metal and my favorite elements of Doom metal. The Fallen need to be considered here. 

Great Death Metal, Great Doom Metal, Great production. What more do you want. This thing kicks ass! I wish that I was a better writer so that I could better articulate how good this is, but it deserves attention. I've listened to it about 4 times over now-no skips. I've debated with my wife and my friend over whether this is a Death Metal or a Doom Metal offering. Wifey says it's death metal, friend says it's doom, and both of them say it's pretty good. I think these reactions speak to how well the influences are mixed into this thing, and to the quality of the content within. It isn't quite a masterpiece to me but the album will see frequent rotation in my household going forward.

I saw Behemoth open for Anthrax, Lamb of God, and Slayer. 

It was somewhere around mid July if I remember right. They looked incredibly goofy trying to be edgy satanists in the middle of the day, and all I remember about the music was being bored as hell. I truly do not understand what people see in this to consider it to be one of the best albums in recent memory. My personal theory is that the title of the Album has some kind of shock appeal, but I feel the same way about Deicide and the endless list of black metal bands that make "we don't like Jesus very much" the focal point of their work. It's not exactly a new or exciting take on anything. Waitan does it in ways that are more sonically pleasing, Gorgoroth did it in ways that were more shocking, etc. Maybe I am simply missing the big idea that makes this special to people, but I don't see it. Boredom is the descriptor I would use, and the worst thing a piece of art can be is boring.

Mediocre Tech-Death, but that is a cool ass album cover. 

That's pretty much all I have to say. The production is great, the musicians are clearly technically proficient. There just isn't anything memorable or interesting going on here that is going to set this apart from any other Tech-Death offering.

Amon Amarth. Start with Iron Maiden, down tune, speed it up, add blast beats, and all the songs are about vikings. 

This is THE Viking metal band, and they are incredibly tight in the studio and on the stage. I saw them a couple years back with Obituary and Carcass (Carcass kicked everybody's ass but that's a different story). This is fast and furious Viking themed metal, nothing more, nothing less, and if you are looking for that you will not be disappointed. For the most part Amon Amarth will always be a gimmick to me, but there is something to be said for being the absolute best at the gimmick and they 100% are. They are also an incredibly tight live band with a great stage show and just a damn good time for all to enjoy.

What pushes this review beyond 3 stars for me is the inclusion of "Runes to my Memory". It's an incredible song on it's own merit and one that belongs on any heavy metal playlist.  Everything around it is very solid, but that track stands out for me. See you in Valhalla!

I think somewhere in this album lies a good idea. However the production is just off. It's muddied and the percussion is choked out. 

Then comes the worst offender: Operatic Soprano. I hate it everytime. It just doesn't go with this kind of music. I hate the whole beauty and the beast vocal dynamic, and cannot score it highly. 

Ah yes Witchfinder General, and Death Penatly. 

The best way I can describe this album is that it is Black Sabbath meets NWOBHM (particularly I get strong Angel Witch Vibes). I think it's a fun and very cool album, and "Free Country" is of course an underground anthem of sorts. At least the metal clubs around my area (Detroit) play it between sets over the PA all the time. That being said. It can also drag in places, and it's fairly generic sounding. I am a bit mesmerized by it's status as a cornerstone of the genre.

I think it works as a great entry point, but there is going to come a time where you want to go either faster and gravitate to full on NWOBHM and Thrash, or you're going want to go slower and thicker like myself. This album is the fork in that road, and once you go down either path it starts to fall short. I'm never upset to hear it, but I'm never excited to hear it either. 

Take Thergothon, and My Dying Bride. Put them together. Now remove anything enjoyable. You have this. PASS! This is sincerely all I can muster, and I feel it is deadly accurate. If I had to chance a guess, I would say that this album gets some spotlight because it's a very early doom release on Peaceville Records. Not everything old is grounding-breaking, and not everything on Peaceville is good. Any positive reviews I read anywhere of this album indicated, implied, or outright stated that the listener was on psychedelics so maybe that's the secret sauce. I would not know. What I do no know is that as a sober listen, this thing sucks.

More like Fat, Drunk, and Stupid, and that's no way to go through life son. 

I love Peter Steele and what he would go on to do with Type O Negative, but this isn't a Type O Negative album. These are left over scraps from the Carnivore table, and not the particularly desirable scraps either. Just do it right and start with Bloody Kisses. I mean this is literally a compilation of songs Pete had on the cutting floor and did not think were good enough for Carnivore. Pete was right.

Low-Fi, Extremely slow, Early Ominious Funeral Doom approaching drone metal. 

I appreciate again that this was an early landmark, but we have better options now. That being said this album does have an extremely strong atmosphere, and if what it does hits for you then you're going to have a good time with it. I need a little more guitar, and a little more catch. 

This is Traditional Doom Metal done right. 

Black Sabbath Influence-Check
Deep but clear Production-Check
Catchy Guitar Riffs-Check
ThiCC BAss-Check 

The Country boy in me is also enjoying the southern-blues unpinnings. I'd happily recommend this album to anybody. Scott Weinrich is a legend for a reason. Turn it on, Turn it up!

I''m not going to sugar coat it. I absolutely hate this. This is another one of those female-fronted bands that coasts off "we have a pretty operatic-soprano" singer. Like all the other stuff like this, you have a mediocre metal band backing a front woman who would clearly rather be doing anything else. If you would like Nightwish but slower here ya go. Personally, I'd banish this stuff from the face of the earth if I could. The appropriate subgenre is "metal for people who don't actually like metal, performed by people who probably don't actually like metal." Did I mention that I don't like it very much?

We have Candlemass at home. Actually I have Candlemass at home and I'd rather listen to that. This is not bad by any means, but it's a poor man's Candlemass and I can not shake it. If you like epic-doom metal it going to do everything you want it to do, but it isn't going to dazzle you with any surprises. 

Early funeral doom has a particular sound and atmosphere. Skepticism was among the founders of that subgenre, and while I appreciate their groundwork, there are now a multitude of bands that have done it better. It's big, forboding, and scarce. Too scarce for me, but still a landmark. Try it out for yourself-listen to the first 5minutes, and decide if you want to keep doing that for an hour. 

Man, as I go through this early years of Doom,. I am coming to realize that a lot of these bands didn't exactly nail it out of the gates, and this is another in the trend. It's absolutely mediocre doom metal from a band that has better offerings later in their career.

The songs are amazing, but this version has extremely poor production, and isn't readily available on spotify or most place for that matter. Relentless is the same album with much better versions of the tracks and is much more accessible. Relentless is an amazing album because these songs are great, but tidied up on those versions. In other words this is fine, but when Relentess exists their is no reason, other than historic curiosity to choose this one instead.

This is a legendary and mandatory listen for doom metal fans. My Dying Bride is among my absolute favorite bands. MDB is a fiersome doom metal unity, but I think they have 2 secret weapons that put them over the top of many peers; the violin, and Aaron Stainthrorp. Gigantic Melancholy atmosphere, monolithic riffs, and then the frosting on the cake; tasteful violin accents, and PERFECT vocals. 

Turn Loose the Swans is a very early entry, and the 4.5 is only because while it is absolutely excellent, they get even better later on in their discogaphy. Push play and enjoy!

The music on this album is some of the most beautifully composed and interesting doom metal I've ever heard. It is truly incredible. I am without the words to describe how good the instrumentation here really is. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the vocals. The listening experience for me was a back and forth between wanting to bail out because of the vocals, and wanting to stay and see what new, gorgeus, and interesting, things the music would do. A positive that I will say for the vocal though; it isn't boring, and it isn't low effort. The man singing these songs is pouring absolutely everything he has into every word, the problem may very well be that it's just too much. It's such an over-the-top performance that for me it became grating, but it's definitely not lazy or lacking enthuasm. 

...it might even grow on me over time.

Would you like if somebody interupted your funeral with a bunch of grating alarms and industrial noise? Me neither. Pass.

The above was all I had to say about this album, and a year later it still is. I looked around online to see how it affected others. I was able to scrounge up a whopping 3 reviews of the album, all containing the buzzwords "grating", "challenging", "exhausting", but then they gave it very high ratings, and I can only attribute this to the classic high school move of trying to score cool points by pretending to like something that sucks. I never understood that mentality and I still don't. It is all three of those things though; grating, challenging, and exhausting, chiefly the later. 

Fun fact you can make this album at home. Simply set your bed next to your clothes washer, and one of those vintage alarm clocks-you want that drilling beep. Now drink a 5th of southern comfort, stay up all night, and do a load of laundry as the alarm clocks sounds. It will be challenging, grating, and exhuasting. Doesn't sound like fun? Well, neither is listening to this shit.

What this album amounts to is doom-grind. You're going to get big monolithic funeral doom riffs, growled mournful vocals, and then you're going to get a blast beat section every once in a while. I'm scoring it right down the middle, because of it's novelty and it's influence. I can't say that I've heard an album that sounds quite like this one before, so it can scratch a specific itch. It's personally not for me, but I can understand why it would be well regarded especially in 1993. 

Bottom line: Hear this once for sure. Appreciate it. Then decide if you need repeated listening. I don't, but I'm glad I heard it once.