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MISANTHROPY “The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance”
MISANTHROPY “The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance”
By Thor
Chicago’s MISANTHROPY has only been around for a little over a decade. And for the first chunk of their existence, they were a thrash metal band. And yet, the band’s latest offering — “The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance” — is wall-to-wall tech-death, and it’s some of most unique I’ve heard in a while.
I can largely attribute that uniqueness to two things. One is that the music was tracked live in-studio. So, there are intentional micro-ebbs and flows that just don’t exist on the vast majority of modern metal mixes, never mind tech-death. Although, the band’s performance here is so tight, it’s difficult to discern exactly when the band defies our Digital Grid Overlords.
The second interesting thing is the band’s overt use of other genres in its compositions. There’s some funk, some jazzy swing, some neo-classical shred, etc. However, even during these passages it sounds like MISANTHROPY playing death metal as opposed to a death metal band playing a jazz part for a bit. The result is more focused and consistently heavy than is usually the case when death metal bands get weird.
For as impressive a musical feat as “The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance” is, and it IS impressive, it doesn’t quite sidestep one of the common pitfalls of tech-death in general, particularly the Avant-garde variety. There are only seven tracks here, which still end up feeling a little too long by the time it’s over with. And that’s because the songs are less “songs”, and more collections of parts connected in creative ways. The first song alone throws part after part at us, and after the inherent wow-factor wanes, it’s apparent this album will be an exhausting listening experience.
MISANTHROPY’s “The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance”, out now from Transcending Obscurity Records, is an excellent example of how extreme music purveyors are still finding new ways to explore the sonic terrain. As such, it’s a remarkable accomplishment. It will satiate all you ravenous tech nerds out there, for sure. And while it might not contain any Hammer-Smashed anthems, it is a great background record for reading, writing, gaming, and the like.
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