Dead and Dripping - Miasmic Eulogies Predicating an Eternal Nocturne (2021)^{Release ID: 28015}

Technical/Brutal death metal always runs the risk of going one of two ways.  Too much brutality or too much technicality almost inevitably kills off most such releases in my experience.  Dead and Dripping somehow mange to avoid either of the above on their sophomore full-length and manage to stay in between the lines for most of eight tracks on display here.  This bizarre "safe-zone" makes for an entertaining if not unadventurous foray into the world of Evan Daniele, the sole member of the band.  He does little wrong in fairness other than to make predictable patterns and all too familiar structures; in terms of references he is spot on, he is just not really doing anything new nor is he doing old-school all that overwhelmingly brilliant either.

Barring the instrumental weirdness of Eidetic Imagery of Cyclical Despair  we get pretty standard brutal vocals over staccato riffing and start/stop rhythms driven by drums that do not sound well cared for in the mix.  I can sit through the album without much of a challenge, however I am certainly not paying it full attention as it plays as the familiarity just makes me think how this has all been done before.  I am a sucker at present for a good bass player on technical/progressive death metal albums and although Evan does his best here to mix things up with the bass being more audible on some tracks that others, there is just not high enough a degree of skill to the playing to quite push the experience up there with some of the year's more interesting releases.  I almost want the bass to be doing its own thing at times but it sounds like it lacks the courage and conviction to take charge too much here and that will only get better with experience.

The brutal chug ends up distorted by the time/pace changes that seem to flood tracks in places, again like we have a level of technical proficiency that is a few steps behind the ambition that brings the effort to our attention.  If you like your Suffocation or Demilich then there is something here for you even if only for nostalgic purposes, but Dead and Dripping are a couple of releases away from quite hitting the heights of the aforementioned bands.  Being unfamiliar with the debut I cannot comment on how much of an improvement we have seen in seven months that have passed since Profane Verses of Murderous Rhetoric dropped, but I hear enough promise for me to listen to album number three should that arrive in the future.