### Colosso: Abrasive peace

#### 20/02/13 || Ironpants

Colosso = extremely or unusually large creature, large object, giant statue.

Colosso is a one man band (with a guest) and what does one man projects mean to you? For me it could mean two things.

1. You are a fucking douchebag and no one wants to play in your band, usually the product that is coming out of this self pleasuring masturbation suck-o-rama sounds like shit and not a single human but the artist himself and his mom enjoys it. All his “friends” do the devil horns every time they see him and shout things like “Dude! awesome new tune on SoundCloud”, and when he leaves everybody mocking him and make up funny stories about what a fucking twat he is.

2. You are a fucking genius and have taken the steps you need to perfect your ideas, you live by the motto “I´ll do it myself, cause I can” and where you fail, you acknowledge this fact, and summon someone to take care of the stuff needed. And that someone is also a fucking genius that perform his duties professionally, cause he knows that he is dealing with an equal mind and know a pro when he sees one.

I don’t know if Max Tomé, the creator and mastermind of Colosso is a genius, but he is certainly not a looser. He has cranked out one of 2012´s more brutal masterpieces, which totally tickles my balls with perfect accuracy. To bad that I got hold of this news a bit too late, I have missed this release with a six months or so, neglecting me to devour this fine piece of musicianship earlier.

This self-financed baby is a shorter piece of work clocking in around 33 minutes, 37 if you count the 9th song, which is an electronic remix. There is some brutal shit going on here, the first two songs are real neckbreakers, wich pounds on in a fairly good pace. The first songs are quite alike in both tempo and structure, and you hardly notice where the first shifts to the second one, cause Mr. Tomé use keyboards and effects to his brutal composition, leaving no gap in between the songs. The level of electronics used on this album is sparse though, merely used as an atmospheric mood enhancer, never taking over and becoming some kind of permanent member. In my opinion he uses them perfectly. They help building up the total picture of high tech brutality.

The whole album continues in this fast brutal death metal style only slowing down here and there before taking of again towards new highlights of brutality. Track no 5, ”In turmoil”, is the only one really taking it down a notch to midpace, and here we can listen to Tomés singing a bit more isolated. He actually isn´t the best singer from the death metal realm, but he sure does meet the standard from any other random extreme metal band.

It´s easy to believe when reading this, that it´s totally full force mangling, and you are not wrong there, but there are some details that sets this apart from your normal blastbeat extravaganza. He uses clever guitar effects and nuances in the riffs that gives you a perfect amount of diversity as the songs bursts on into unknown territories of various blast tempos.

And what about the old drumstix then, who is handling the shit that turns this into the perfect blastorgasm? Well… drumroll… Dirk Verbeuren of course. This man is fucking incredible! As you should know by know, I have a drum fetish, and Mr Verbeuren is one of the finest of drummers right up there on the top shelf looking out towards new areas to conquer. Tomé could have stepped on a landmine here and contracted any other drumbeast that is´nt really top notch, and the whole project would have taken a different turn. In the art of blastology you still must have the ability to feel the song and still contain a fair amount of groove to contribute to the sheer brute force. I´m not saying that the drums IS the album, rather that the drums LIFT the creation one level. Although, it´s more sheer speed than groove on this album, but there are parts that allows odd time signatures and some stylish grooving. There is a constant feeling that Verbeuren enjoys this quite a lot and just lets himself go for it, just blasting to kingdom come.

Also worth mentioning is the bass (of course also played by Tomé). Maybe it´s not an extraordinary bass experience, but I can tell you this. The bass is definitely there as it should be, it haves that perfect “klonk” that allows it to drive the rhythm of the songs when the guitars are flying around the fretboard. It´s good up in the mix also, taking it´s place. Great work on that one.

Well, you see where this is going right?

Are you pulling your hair out for all this metalcore released nowadays, and are you also a bit tired of everything old-school coming out by the numbers? Treat yourself with some modern brutal mangling with finesse that is also quite technical but never dips over to the mathematic overplayed crap.

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Self-financed
- Website: www.colossometal.com
- Band
- Max Tomé: vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards
- Dirk Verbeuren: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Anthem to chaos
- 02. Demolish to rebuild
- 03. Pattern of disconnection
- 04. The epiphany
- 05. In turmoil
- 06. Tho shalt not be benevolent
- 07. Headless endures
- 08. Unplugged from the world
- 09. Tho shalt not be benevolent (Neutropics remix)