Zenith

Blast blast chug chug squeeeeeeeeel! Yeah. It's technical brutal death and it's going to let you know it every step of the way. Resection is a four-piece German group who recently released their debut LP, 'Zenith'. While the cover art certainly implies melodic death/metalcore all the way, what you get is nine tracks of extremely fast, technical, and, but of course, brutal, death metal. It only slows down occasionally, it never lets up, and it expresses a definite preoccupation for bludgeoning the listener with a folding chair.

Yeah, Resection doesn't really do anything new. I mean, it's okay for what it is, and it's the sort of thing I listen to on a fairly regular basis, but it doesn't particularly grip me or move me to listen to it more than occasionally. Every song is pretty much the same: extremely fast drumming punctuated by technical fills, high speed riffing with the occasional groove passage, low grunting vocals with the occasional pig squeal (though thankfully not overused). Production is clear and solid and gives the music some power, but overall, 'Zenith' just doesn't grab me. It's one thing to do something lacking originality, but if you're going to replicate a tried-and-true pattern, you need to do it exceptionally well to overcome the natural lack of creativity, which Resection just doesn't manage to do.

'Zenith' is an inoffensive listen. I can put it on in the background and nod my head along with it for a half hour without ever really wanting to turn it off. But it never distracts me either. It's brutal, but not incredibly so; technical, but not mind-bendingly, and fast, but just not fast enough to break my concentration. Look, the fact is, those highly dedicated to brutal death metal will of course want to get it, and the rest of the metal-listening audience will want to skip it. I'd pick it up if I saw it for a single-digit price in a distro, but otherwise, I'd probably pass it up. It just doesn't do enough to warrant special treatment.

(Originally written for www.vampire-magazine.com)