Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Martyr (CAN) - Feeding the Abscess (2006)

With my taste for tech-death rooted firmly in the likes of Gorguts and Ulcerate, the third full-length from Canadian mob Martyr does leave me conflicted overall.  As noted on other reviews/comments on the site, the album wanders from just wearing a tech-death uniform to testing the threads and treads of technical thrash metal also whilst retaining just enough elements of Death to feel the record is firmly rooted the right side of the divide to exemplify it's tech-death roots as being the core element of it's genetic make-up.

The fact is though that I really do not like the clean vocals that get deployed here and the technical mastery of the instrumentation, although enticing and well-developed enough still does not temper my overall dissatisfaction with the vocal style.  That having been said, I am not a massive fan of Voivod either so this is hardly a surprise to me, given the close links to the aforementioned prog-thrash legends.

If I focus on the positives for a moment, there's an album of high quality and interesting tech-death/thrash instrumentation on display here that exercises the mind as well as the eardrums.  It occupies a rarefied atmosphere that some may find it hard to breath or spend extended time within the confines of its climate, yet all will find some element of entertainment during however long they decide to stick around for.

Overall, it doesn't work for me.  It relies too much using one element of its construct (the instrumentation) to distract me away from that vocal style that I figure I would still struggle with to some degree even in a more obvious thrash environment.  Even the more ugly and guttural aspects to the vocals do not sell me the project all that well as there needs to be more of this to really get me focused.