Inanimately Soundless

I love this EP because the songs are short. This is a band that doesn't take much time to shuffle around with bullshit: they just keep the tech sections and savage grooves going precisely as long as they need to be and end it. They don't carry on with introspective piano interludes or any of that: they go for the jugular and take little time while doing so. In the constant search for progress, it seems that length has become confused with ability; what of pragmatism and lack of time? The two-minute songs here are just perfect for my fast-paced post-9/11 world.

So, Terminally Your Aborted Ghost is a band that is full of what looks like wiggers but are actually incredibly capable musicians who play entirely unwiggerish brutal death metal. There's not a lot of slam, but there is a lot of tech, and not just everyday complex fills and awkward time signatures: this is more tech in the Gorguts style, with weird, abstract riffing with tabs that probably resemble Penderecki's 'Threnody To The Victims Of Hiroshima', only with more gore-gurgling and less appreciation from the artistic community. But damn if it doesn't deserve it: this music is some of the most abstract in death metal today, constantly shifting and warping in the musical space like some sort of misanthropic amoeba.

Nothing is predictable on this EP. From that opening syncopated snare on 'Underbelly Lover' to the final, rocking groove of 'Disingenuous Quotation', it keeps you guessing throughout its eighteen minute running time, just long enough to get the point across without making the listener bored, which is most definitely the biggest danger in this style of music. The music is highly technical but moves through its movements seamlessly, and all the playing seems deeply frantic and unhinged. This is aided by 'Inanimately Soundless'' fantastic production: bass, drums and vocals at the center with guitars off to the sides, giving it a very claustrophobic, paranoid feel. The tone of each instrument is ultra-distorted and overdriven to the point of insanity, but sounds simply awesome for this music.

Performances are all incredibly skilled. All the instruments are handled and written extremely well, alternating between tech and simple but effective groove without trouble. Drumming and guitarwork are in a constant battle with each other, pulling ahead, urging each other faster and faster and more wild with every passing second. A track like 'Trenchfoot' sounds ready to collapse at any moment before an impromptu drum/vocal solo breaks through and ties all the instruments back together with predatory groove. The vocals here are perhaps the strangest of all the sounds here: Immensely slurring and 'wet' sounding, like Devon Wedge is attempting to mouth the bizarre lyrics while slurping up the intestines of an unwitting victim. Bizarre in any other context, but logical and effective here.

I would say that this record is almost the sequel to 'From Wisdom To Hate'; that album was where Gorguts finally fused their abstract technicality with traditional songwriting, resulting in the very peak of that band's achievements. Terminally Your Aborted Ghost does the same here, experimenting massively with the edges of sonic properties in death metal while still anchored to the purity of the genre. There's something for everyone here: the Psyopus fan as much as the lover of Devourment, and the sides are able to mesh in a way that is undeniably pleasing to the ear. You see? Tech and atmosphere can coexist peacefully. Ebony and ivory. Or, in this case, stabwounds and blunt force trauma.