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Biomechanical: Cannibalised
04/10/08 || HailandKill
This year’s “Cannibalised” from that British band of unparalleled ambition, Biomechanical, shakes Heavy Metal’s very foundations with the ferocious music churning inside it. Mixing bits of grandiose film score (think “Dark Passion Play”, only creepier) with insane tempos, this album proudly lives up to the standard Global Domination has set. Biomechanical are the rulers. The hair on yer balls.
What’s this? Not convinced? You’re either a twat or a Black Metal elitist if you fail to appreciate how opener “Fallen in Fear” rocks your private parts as it plummets and soars as John K’s shattering vocals layers its fury. Before you can even think that the album has given you its best, “The Unseen” barges in and tears you to shreds. If you love Thrash Metal, it’s impossible you won’t dig this song, or the rest of “Cannibalised” for that matter. Because it’s all here MOFO’s: Brutality, epicness, and a blizzard of original ideas that could only spring from John K.’s uber-talented mind. You gotta give him credit for melding his movie scoring background with a passion for uncompromising metal, because the outcome is the decade’s finest series of albums.
Allowing for a few minute’s explanation, “Cannibalised” is the closing chapter that began with “Eight Moons” in 2005, followed by 2007’s “Empires of the Worlds.” The common thread among the three is quite fuzzy-something to do with evil machine overlords and how they’ve enslaved the minds of mankind—but their execution and scope more than compensate. Compared to the bloated volumes coming from Judas Priest, Iced Earth, and Cage these last few years, Biomechanical’s achievement with this saga of theirs is quite unparalleled, just like the Star Wars trilogy, whose composer’s “Imperial March” inspired John K.’s adventures in orchestral music or movie scoring. The rest of the band shines brightly as well. Plucked from the forgotten corners of MySpace (John K. admits this during interviews) after their predecessors departed en masse, guitarists Gus Drax and Chris Van Hayden, together with bassist Adrian Lambert and skinsman J. Lodge, all deserve diplomas for keeping this album’s musical structure tight. And when you least expect it, slaying axework that’s “The New Order” Alex Skolnick marrying “Atrocity Exhibition” Gary Holt erupt from the music’s maniacal pitch to fry your pubic hair.
Continuing where this review left off, since the songs here were written in a whirlwind of creativity that’s spread across three albums, their intensity never wanes. In fact, by the time the title track comes along, your ears might be sore. “Breathing Silence” is the album’s rare schizophrenic twist, swinging between depressive verses to sudden fits of doomy heaviness. “Slow the Poison” works the same way, where frenetic drumming and dizzying grooves are spinning inside a blender that includes John K.’s Rob Halford-meets-Phil Anslemo vocal style swirling in the sonic slush. The beginning of the end is at “Consumed,” where classical elements and more muscular grooves form a tidal wave that reaches its crest on “Reborn in Damnation,” which is every bit as pummeling. The album finally mellows down on the haunting “Through Hatred Arise.”
The entire spectacle draws to a close with the flailing despair of “Violent Descent.” Once it’s over, the aforementioned hair on yer balls might be tingling with electricity, petrified by the album’s aural awesumness (that’s deliberately misspelled). “Cannibalised” definitely stands apart from much of today’s dross, so it deserves a place in your heart. If you’re sick of endless Avantasia’s and John Schaffer’s storytelling prowess, then look no further than Biomechanical. These fuckers are the best, a ménage a trois between Pantera, Painkiller-era Judas Priest, and Chronicles of Riddick. They are the rulers. The—don’t you know this already?
9.5 flesh eating cyborgs out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Earache Records
- Website: www.biomechanical.co.uk
- Band
- John K.: vocals
- Gus Drax: guitar
- Chris Van Hayden: guitar
- Adrian Lambert: bass
- J. Lodge: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Fallen in Fear
- 02. The Unseen
- 03. Cannibalised
- 04. Breathing Silence
- 05. Predatory
- 06. Slow the Poison
- 07. Consumed
- 08. Reborn in Damnation
- 09. Through Hatred Arise
- 10. Violent Descent
