Review by Daniel for Flourishing - The Sum of All Fossils (2011)

I remember giving this sole 2011 album from short-lived New York death metallers Flourishing a couple of spins back at the time of release & found it to be quite enjoyable however it didn’t quite captivate me enough to see me returning to it since so the prospect of a return visit to month’s The Horde feature releases was something I welcomed in order to see whether my affections had grown over time. The dissonant death metal crowd is chock full of Gorguts clones that may attempt all sorts of adventurous melodic & harmonic experimentation but rarely manage to identify themselves from the crowd. Flourishing on the other hand offer something a little left of field by incorporating a number of unusual influences which gives them a refreshing differentiator. There’s no question that the basis for their sound has been developed using the building blocks that Gorguts & Ulcerate have popularized however the band regularly stray into uncharted territories that are more reminiscent of an abrasive Godflesh sludge-fest, Sonic Youth’s super-cool take on noise rock or the post-hardcore adventures of bands like At The Drive-In or Fugazi.

Front man Garrett Bussanick possesses a raspy & tortured howl that’s pretty similar to Asphyx’s Martin van Drunen & he does an admirable job at keeping things deathly no matter how far the instrumentation drifts outside of that space too. Garrett’s dissonant guitar work regularly employs the use of natural harmonics to great effect, a tool that immediately sees my ears pricking up due to the similarities to Godflesh mastermind Justin Broadrick’s innovative take on the technique. The heavily down-tuned & distorted bass guitar tone of Eric Rizk also has Godlfesh written all over it & I have to say that I really dig it. Unfortunately drummer Brian Corcoran isn’t quite up to the requirements here which ultimately sees Flourishing leaving a portion of their potential on the table. If you threw a tier one extreme metal drummer into the mix then I feel that “The Sum Of All Fossils” had the potential to be much stronger but Corcoran sounds like his technique & creativity were capping out here which is a real shame. The murky production hasn’t done him any favours but it admittedly works really well for the other two musicians.

At the end of the day I can’t deny that I’m really intrigued by the eccentricities “The Sum Of All Fossils” contains however it doesn’t quite manage to hit my sweet spot consistently enough to warrant my higher scores which has no doubt been contributed to by my struggles with Corcoran. Flourishing’s more dissonant & deathly material is generally at a slightly lower standard to their more expansive excursions through alternate genres but it’s nonetheless a very consistent record that offers plenty to analyse & dissect.

For fans of Aeviterne, Pyrrhon & Gigan.