Beneath the Massacre
Mechanics of Dysfunction
Prosthetic
The final frontier
Beneath the Massacre's 2005 debut EP showed great promise, barefaced Cryptopsy influence and all. The Montreal-based technical death metal quartet's first full-length not only makes good on that promise, but hints at feats of greater virtuosity to come. Robot centipede drummer Justin Rousselle peppers default blast beats with perfectly articulated gravity blasts and vertiginous fills. Dennis Bradley's basslines trace rubbery links between Rousselle's onslaught and guitarist Christopher Bradley's labyrinthine constructs. Only Elliot Desgagnés doesn't spend most of his time approaching the speed of light. "Wasting our lives/ Digging our own graves," the vocalist croaks in magisterial slo-mo on "The System's Failure," sounding like some monstrous deity from a planet much larger than Earth. Alternating between convoluted riff sets and considered seizures, Christopher Bradley doesn't so much slow down on the song's lumbering breakdown as simply cut a few notes out of his usual barrage.
As on the rest of the album, the band regularly stops on one proton, starts on another. Sure, their chops are dazzling, the aural equivalent of intergalactic combat. But Beneath the Massacre offer more than mere technical expertise and sustained brutality; Mechanics of Dysfunction's compositions are its greatest strength, compressed electromagnetic epics that remind us of things we don't usually think about, little things: The planet we live on spins a thousand miles an hour. Our bodies are 99% empty space. Gamma rays, X-rays, and neutrinos hurtle through them all the time, even when we're eating. —Rod Smith
