Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for Gaza - He Is Never Coming Back (2009)

Two and a half years after Gaza's debut album was a feature release, it's time for this album to take the throne. It's a solid blend of mathcore and sludge metal, and I would certainly recommend it to those who enjoy that combo. Though Gaza is never coming back, their music is gonna stay with us in this site.

Black Market Activities and Deathwish Inc. are two of the most excellent extreme metal/hardcore record labels around. With Gaza signed to the former, they've added in elements of fellow bands of the label such as Cancer Bats and The Red Chord into their sound. And holy sh*t, this offering is so stellar yet monstrous! Gaza has the chaotic rage of mathcore and dark dread of sludge metal with pieces of post-metal and grindcore, all in crushing devastation.

The album opens slow and doomy with "How It Is. How It Is Going to Be." Halfway through, some groove is added to the mix, and by the end, only feedback remains. Next up, "The Kicking Legs" really kicks things up with dissonant grind-ish mathcore through just 3 minutes (short, yet long compared to songs of that sound). The blend of sludge and grind is demonstrated in "Bishop". Then comes the first of a few interludes named after different occupations, the southern-ish ambient "The Biologist", a brief calm before the storm continues as intense as the rainy season in my country...

You know what I'm talking about the short yet mighty "Windowless House". Then the title track has a bit of the discordance of Underoath at that time. "Canine Disposal Unit" will leave the listener all beaten and bleeding, and their only hope is to crawl through the slow second half. Still the experience is worth it. The restrained "The Anthropologist" is another beautiful interlude. Then "The Meat of a Leg Joint" adds more meat to the sound.

"The Astronomer" is a full-on post-metal interlude. Then "Tombless" continues the aggressive fury of grind. From the last short interlude, "The Historian", you know that The Revolution is a clan that can include dark slow heaviness, not just the bright upbeat melody of early Enter Shikari. Ending the mathcore/sludge action is "Carnivore", nicely yet brutally. The untitled hidden track should actually have been considered part of the album. It nicely flows out of the rest of the album as a 15-minute progressive post-sludge Crusade (you know the reference), in a similar style to Neurosis. A very good ending for this album.

He Is Never Coming Back may not stand out as much as the band's debut, but it really shows how well they've achieved. Elements of grindcore, post-metal, and doom are added to the mathcore/sludge sound in a lyrical battle against organization. The only soft parts of the entire album are the first two interludes and that 15-minute hidden track. Everything else is bulldozing chaos! For those interested in this kind of sound, I highly recommend this offering to you all....

Favorites: "How It Is. How It Is Going to Be.", "The Kicking Legs", "He Is Never Coming Back", "Canine Disposal Unit", "Tombless", "Carnivore", "Hidden Track"