WRISTMEETRAZOR
WRISTMEETRAZOR "Degeneration"
By Dr. Abner Mality
Don't think there will be a lot of cheer in this one, given the band name and the cover art that reminded me somewhat of "Life of Brian". And indeed, this is a pretty caustic affair. WRISTMEETRAZOR are described as metalcore in the press sheet and you can find that here, but there's also some crunchy groove-thrash, touches of industrial and EBM, some thudding nu-metal riffs, core breakdowns, even some mopey goth and post-punk. Yes, this is 100% a "modern metal" album so don't look for much old-school headbanging here. But you will find a lot of straight aggression and down-tuned heaviness on "Degeneration".
There are some cringeable parts where cliched clean vocals and predictable breakdowns pop up, but I can overlook those when flat-out thrash riffing and super-chunky hooks win the day. Listen to the likes of "No Ceremony", "Culled and Forgotten" and "Xeroxed Reflection" for WMR at its angriest and heaviest. The vocals of Justin Fornof have the foaming at the mouth rabid hatred of deathcore, which gets somewhat monotonous over the course of the album. But it does sound authentically off the hook.
"DogDayGod" and "Synthetic 51n" are where the electro influences become very apparent, sounding like STATIC-X meets NIN. But the song where WMR lets all their inspirations show is "The Greatest Love Offering IN the History of the World", which literally is two separate tunes spliced together. The first part is fast and furious, but that simply stops and after a gap of silence, the tune becomes completely different, with catchy riffs like KISS meeting the mopey Goth of SISTERS OF MERCY., with depressing deep vocals to match. A weird but compelling track.
There's a lot about WRISTMEETRAZOR that makes me a little twitchy, but there is something sincere about this bunch that puts them in the plus column for me.