Undimensional

Mucopus is one of those bands that is really quite unique, but this isn't that surprising considering the name. I may be biased giving these guys a good rating, because I'm a huge fan of Jason's work with Skinless, but whatever.

Mucopus came into the metal scene in 2004, with one demo, though it did not stirr up much attention. They released a full length a year later, then this one 2 years later.

This is a relatively short album, considering how it is only 28 minutes, barely even a full length album. I think this is a good thing, as the style of music they play can get a bit tiresome after a bit. There is a lot more than just constant chugs and power chords, and there are a lot of cool riffs. The riffs are very technical, almost jazzy, at times. The drums don't really do much special, not too many cool fills or solos, but they definitely do there job well, and aren't as overpowering as some bands (Here's lookin' at you, Aborted).

The highlight of the album, instrument-wise, I'd say is the bass. Holy shit, this guy can play! He's just all over the fretboard, and not in a bad way. The sound (as someone else said as well) of the bass is very similar to early Cryptopsy, especially on the song "Super No Vacancy". Definitely one of the highlights of this record.

One thing about this record is that some of the vocal sounds can get a bit irritating. While I like Jason's regular screams and growls, I find the squealing and the gurgling can be a bit annoying at times, but considering he doesn't do them in every freaking song, like Wormed, it isn't anything too bad. Despite this, he's a very talented vocalist, and can quickly switch between low growls, and high pitch screams, in a matter of milliseconds(see: Pus Must Flow). A lot of skill there.

Another minor complaint I have, that I'm sure a lot of people will be turned off of this record for, is it does have breakdowns. Now, don't close your browser and go listen to Entombed and Grave yet, because they aren't just standard deathcore breakdowns that you would find in bands like Suicide Silence or any of that crap. They contain more than one note, and at times have the bass in the background doing some pretty cool stuff. Not that big of a deal, but they can get annoying at times.

Overall, this is a very solid release, I do hope they plan on doing more albums soon. Check this out if you're a fan of Skinless, Cryptopsy, or really any kind of brutal death metal.

I recall reading in a review on this site (Cheese_Priced review of Nespithe, to be exact) that in order to be truly unique, one simply should have a unique perspective as opposed to just throwing random in elements to the sound for the hell of it. And I'd say this band did a pretty good job of having a unique outlook. This is far from the standard fare of music consisting of 90% blast beats, slams and tremolo that a lot of their contemporaries in brutal death provide. Of course, the music has plenty of that, but the slams seem jovial (With manic jazzy slap bass runs insinuating an underlying dementia) instead of trying to be crushing or brutal , and the drums don't really seem all that aggressive, possibly due to being somewhat low in the mix. Because of the lack of drum presence, one can hear the riffs quite clearly, unlike many brutal DM records.

As a matter of fact, there are so many dissimilarities between this album and what I generally think of when I think brutal death , I have trouble calling it that. For one, a good bit of this album is filled with what would generally be referred to as a slam , and very little of this album's quicker parts could be construed as astonishingly fast or punishing. The only overt tie it has are those deep gutturals, and even then, they’re not made use of full time. The vocalist goes from an odd raspy scream to pig squeals (Not done so often, in case you don’t like them), and the aforementioned deep growls. If anything, it’s a rock-ish, accessible version of what’s typically thought of as “technical brutal death metal”. Though, what’s thought of as an “accessible” listen in this genre is completely senseless noise to about 98% of the population, give or take, so I use the term loosely here. This is a “fun” sort of listen that, while having been made by talented musicians, was not created with the intents (Or perhaps, delusions of grandeur) many musicians of their caliber possess. Liken it to Aeon, perhaps, sans the Deicide influence and in it’s place put Disgorge.

A thing one will easily note will be the plethora of samples present. Whether or not each individual person will see the point to them is something I feel unfit to comment on, but I for one like the strangely silly nature of the majority of them, and believe them to be a welcome addition (Like the sample in the middle of “Super No Vacancy” around 1:23).

The murky, bassy tone of the string section reminds me of both Cryptopsy around the Blasphemy Made Flesh period, and the overall atmosphere of swamps and the boggier days of the great state of Georgia. The guitars just chug out the mostly mid-paced/slow rhythms whilst the bass pops, slaps and otherwise just adds an unusually fucked-up feeling to the whole thing, and the drums get buried under the other instruments, which is fine for me, but it might aggravate others. I also don’t recall a single blast beat, which again led me to wonder if I was indeed listening to a brutal death metal record.

All things considered, this is a strange take on modern DM, and an enjoyable one at that. If you prefer the more serious stuff, I’d stay away, as Mucopus don’t come off as being particularly serious about anything but making non-serious music.

I have no idea of whether I'm supposed to take 'Undimensional' seriously or if it's supposed to be some parody of modern brutal/technical death metal, but I feel like treating it as the latter. Mucopus sounds like a group of very talented musicians playing this sort of music as a joke amongst themselves. More specifically, it sounds like the sort of thing that people heavily into the mathcore/tech scene would view brutal death metal as. Every element is taken to levels of complete parody. Despite having few real metalcore influences, this feels like more of a metalcore album than anything else, and I'm not sure why. In fact, it reminds me an uncomfortably large amount of Cephalic Carnage. That's not a good thing, in case you didn't know.

The most obvious eye-rolling occurs during the omnipresent breakdowns. Every song has them, and every element in them, like the rest of the music, is taken to a retarded extreme. The palm muting is as hard as humanly possible, the double bass as loud as possible, and the vocals as gurgly and squealy as possible. It's like Infected Malignity's first album if it had been made out of a sort of condescending malice towards brutal death rather than a love for it. I don't get the impression that Mucopus really like death metal at all; it sounds more like they're looking down their noses at the genre and have made this album to express what they feel is wrong with it. On top of that, it's really musically unexciting; no matter how fast or technical or brutal it gets, my response to the music is just very unenthusiastic and vaguely offended. It's an album that pisses me off just based on how silly and overwrought everything is, and they're not doing it in a good spirit. It's intentionally dumb.

Imagine some guy going to the Special Olympics with a helmet on his head, mismatched clothing, hair cut out in erratic patches, and deciding to flap his arms, drool, and yell loudly in center field. It's not even a capable parody of the retarded; it's just really noisy, obvious, and designed to draw attention to itself. If I'm actually supposed to take this music seriously, there's a whole new problem to be faced: that's a completely fucking impossible task. The worst is that retarded fadeout at the end of 'Feast Of Famine'; I can't think of a single worse parody of brutal death than that stupid double bass under agonizingly slow slam riff. And the sample at the end, which seems to be saying, "Yes, you were impressed by us! Admit it, you were!" just takes the fucking cake for irritating the hell out of me.

It's just so inelegant and willfully stupid that I can't bring myself to enjoy it. None of it gets my head moving because it's designed to APPEAR heavy, not actually be it. The fast parts are technical and erratic, yet uninspired, and the slow parts are just silly and dripping with sarcasm. I'm not impressed on any level by it. I can imagine Mucopus sitting around, writing this album, and saying to each other "Yeah, we'll put a pig squeal here! That'd be hilarious!" Then there would be a demonstration of the classic *bree*, laughter, and yet another bowl smoked. "God damn, we're really sticking it to these guys." No, not really. If this is supposed to be good, enjoyable music, then they're going the exact wrong way about it. This really is Cephalic Carnage for a slightly more underground audience; it's got that same feel of self-parody yet narcissism. Even the music itself has that sort of pretense about it: the atonal, Wormed-style tremolo riffing, the constant barrages of double bass and technical fills, the gurgly, squealy vocals, etc.

If it's supposed to be a parody, it's a clumsy and unamusing one. If it's supposed to be serious, it's a parody without knowing it. Either way, I don't see it as being worth my time or yours. There are better bands in either branch, and ones that come by it more honestly than this. It's brutal death for people in Dethklok shirts.

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