Review by SilentScream213 for Discordance Axis - The Inalienable Dreamless (2000)

Music is crazy, vocals are horrendous. As far as Grindcore goes, this is just as manic and erratic as everything else, but somehow, manages to capture a little bit of melody in the riffs and chords at times. Now, it’s just as often (actually much more so often) chaotic and dissonant, but the occasional dip into what sounds like conventional music boosts this tremendously. The songs are more memorable than your average Grindcore experience because of the tasteful riffs thrown in. The drumming is endlessly impressive, but it is more boring because it is much more liable to just blast beat all the time, leaving little room for anything else. The only time the drums do anything normal is on “Loveless.”

The thing that could have been really interesting about this album is that it supposedly has a ton of references about Neon Genesis Evangelion, and deals with much more depressive and personal lyrics with a sci-fi twist. Now, here’s a big part of where the vocals come in. There are two vocals styles used here; the more often high pitched screams, and the occasional Deathgrind growls. The highs are very annoying and abrasive, and aren’t even intelligible, which is usually one of the benefits of using a higher pitch scream. The lows sound alright, but are beyond unintelligible, garbled nonsense. So, what then, is the purpose? Even when reading along with the lyrics, not a single word is decipherable. The vocals add nothing to the music (for this listener) and instead shriek as much as possible to take away from any nice music going on underneath. It’s such a waste. This would honestly be one of my favorite Grindcore albums if it weren’t completely scalped by the awful vocals.