Review by Saxy S for Fractal Generator - Convergence (2024)

I don't have a lot to say about this release from Sudbury's Fractal Generator unfortunately, but I still feel obligated to write something about Convergence because they are homegrown and I am making a genuine effort to present Canadian content not only as a point of exposure, but also as a point of contention in hopes that someone will see this and add some variation to improve. Or if I'm lucky, maybe the band will see this one day!

Convergence is a pretty solid, if not unoriginal, death meta album. The album has a lot of intensity carried out by way of some crunchy harmonic dissonance. The record can be hard to follow at times given how much the album fluctuates between modulating time signatures and riffs, but many of them do link back to other motifs. The occasional chorus lines that appear on "Cryogenain," "Cyphertext" and "Algorithmic Pathways" give the album a feeling of otherworldliness, before blast beats and howls plummet that idea back into the earth. Beyond those however, this is pretty standard death metal. Even though Fractal Generator do have some nice dynamic shifts throughout this record, it still stands that it can become a little overwhelming at times.

That being said, Convergence is not a bad album. It should satisfy the more tech death-y audience, and its runtime will make sure that the listener does not become too drained by the end. But its simplicity in the compositions does make this record sound like its missing something to turn it grand. Like I said during my Ulcerate review, the proficiency of Cutting the Throat of God is so good that other records just don't cut it for me. This is a prime example of that.

Best Songs: Cryogenain, Ancient Civilizations, Ciphertext