Review by Saxy S for Xoth - Exogalactic (2023)

This is very impressive technical death/thrash metal that isn't ashamed to share a thoughtful melodic side. It reminds me compositionally of what you might expect out of a band like Allegaeon, but with the heavier technical elements that make it sound more sonically like Vektor or Revocation. The albums individual songs are relatively short for this type of metal, which is beneficial for its replayable factor. I will say that that the vocals are likely the least developed part of the record as they don't really reach the same potential. I'm not asking for Xoth to have clean singing in their music, but a little bit more variety in the delivery would have been nice, and no I don't mean the half spoken/half screamed vocals that sporadically appear because they don't fit the intensity at all; almost makes it feel closer to pretentious art rock, which I've been blissfully ignoring these last two years. If you can forgive the sonic discrepancies, then Exogalactic is a very interesting and close to great technical metal album whose greatest asset is the melodic songwriting. If technical metal sounded more like this, I would likely enjoy it more.

Best Songs: Manuscripts of Madness, The Parasitic Orchestra, Sporecraft Zero, Battlesphere