### Nexus: The paradise complex

#### 15/09/09 || Smalley

Dude, calm the fuck down already. The dude in question being Dan Grainger, the singer/drummer for this Australian outfit, and the thing he needs to calm down is his drumming. His constant, furious kit-pounding is prevalent on so much of this album, that he sounds like he’s trying to compete neck-and-neck with the guitars, and take up as much sound space as they do. Look, in heavy metal, the drums almost always take some sort of a back seat to the guitarwork, the guitars usually take center-stage, and it’s supposed to be that way; there’s no need to be so insistent about it! Also, his drums are rendered really loud by the production job, so there’s very little hope of tuning ‘em out somehow in order to hear the guitars better; there’s just no compromise on them!

But despite that, I was still able to semi-enjoy this debut, maybe because I like both Cynic and later Death (but really, who doesn’t like Death?). Nexus has this technical-ish death metal style very much influenced by those bands, a style which becomes more and more pronounced as this album wears on, and may even lead some to call Nexus rip-offs, though I wouldn’t go that far. For one thing, Dan’s vocals don’t sound like the singers from Cynic or Death (they’re really harsh, render most of the lyrics unintelligible, and sound like a raspier version of Sauron from Decapitated), and for another, Nexus definitely doesn’t have their shit together like those bands did; you see, these guys are a really, really hyperactive take on the Cynic/Death style, annoyingly so. There were a number of good riffs, bass lines, solos (which reminded me the most of Death here), etc., that I heard, and that I truly enjoyed, but those good parts never lasted long, and would always degenerate back into a mish-mash of competing, conflicting sounds, that just failed to get off the ground and satisfy me as a listener.

So, these guys need to lower their collective blood pressure or whatever the hell it is that makes them so fucken furious about everything, since this album failed to click because of that, and made me way too tense to really enjoy it, or recommend it to anyone (not even to the biggest Cynic/Death heads). However, I am at least hopeful for the future prospects of this band, since, as I said, I did enjoy certain aspects of this record; they just need to spend some time streamlining their unwieldy sound/songwriting style, and calm things down some, in order to succeed as a band. By the way, guys, get yourselves a new name already, please? I mean, there’s at least eight fucken other bands with the exact same name already…

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: self-released
- Website: Nexus MySpace
- Band
- Dan Grainger: vocals, drums
- Geoff Eaton: guitar
- Dylan Szymkow: guitar
- Josh Harris: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. The Reckoning
- 02. Ultimate Knowledge
- 03. Genesis
- 04. The Reasoning
- 05. Twelve Minds
- 06. The War Of Thought
- 07. The Reawakening
- 08. Lhaarn’dhrr