Anomalous - Ohmnivalent 2011

Genre: Brutal Technical Death Metal
Lyrical themes: Anti-Christian, Redention, Conspiracy, Society
Country of origin: United States
Location : San Francisco, California

01 Premateria (A Fire Birth) 03:40    
02 The Seraphim Veil 05:20    
03 Bicruciforms: The Eternal Return 04:58      
04 Ohmnivalent 08:19    
05 Mitosis 08:42    
06 Panacea 04:44
07 Hypnagogue 05:02    
08 Demiurge 05:26    
09 Binary Resurrection 07:40

What we have here may just be the most technical album ever recorded. When I first heard some of the music these guys were making, I had to call bullshit at first. It is just so insanely technical, and they switch from one idea to the next probably eight times every ten seconds. Although the songs can be a little tedious, this is nonetheless a very good album and should be in the collection of any fan of technical death metal. The usual formula for the songs is to throw out a riff played at hyper speed, and then dispatch it as quickly as it came and then throw out yet another riff. Anomalous never repeat a guitar line twice in a song and the overall memorability of the songs suffer for it, but it is compelling. The sheer amount of riffs in each track is staggering - and they hit you as hard and as fast as humanly possible for the entire length of OHMnivalent. To say that the guitar players are beyond proficient is a major understatement as they can shred as fast as any other guitar legend, but their guitar parts are definitely tight, groovy, and of course, technical as fuck throughout. Another real bonus is when they play a few quiet passages (see the mid-section of the title track) that are just beautiful. This is due in part to a wonderful guitar tone, but these guys are extremely well versed musicians and clearly want to display a nice variety of brutality as well as beauty on this album. Another notable trait of the music found within is that it is completely devoid of any time signature, whatsoever. Try to tap your foot to this, you will not be able to do it. Each riff thrown into the mix seems to also come with its own new time signature, and at times the music sound like a huge cluster of noise, but there is method to the mayhem. You wouldn't believe that humans could comprehend these songs, but they clearly can! The most notable performance here comes from drum legend Marco Pitruzzella, the drummer from Brain Drill. That may elicit a bit of a knee jerk reaction for some, as it did for me, but you need to hear him these days; his drum performance here is anything but annoying gravity blasts with a horrific drum tone. He has really become what I would honestly call one of the finest drummers of our generation. His drumming is still ludicrously fast, but his tone is much better on this record than on Brain Drill's debut. I still can't believe a human can fathom the song structures he was presented with, but he does an incredible job keeping the beat. This man has become a human computer when it comes to his instrument. There is only one problem; he is still playing on that damned electric kit of his. If he would just ditch the electric drums and graduate to a big boy kit, he would be one of my current favorite drummers undoubtedly. This record is one of the most bizarre and frantic cluster fucks ever caught on tape. It suffers from a lack of memorability, but this wasn't written to have hooks- it is just some good djenty tech death! Is it good to play all the time? No. Is it a great record from time to time that is both mind blowing in its delivery and compelling to behold? Oh yes. I look forward to future releases from these guys.


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