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Centinex > Decadence - Prophecies of Cosmic Chaos > Reviews
Centinex - Decadence - Prophecies of Cosmic Chaos

Always getting more modern... - 83%

CHRISTI_NS_ANITY8, April 12th, 2009

The seventh effort by Centinex is called Decadence: Prophecies of Cosmic Chaos and it came out in 2004. So far, this band has never put out awesome works. They always stayed on good levels, with a few very good peaks but nothing more. Surely, they were far more “famous” for their attitude and convictions. Those who love this band love their attitude, their strong behaviour that helped them to face and overcome a lot of bad periods, with lots of line-up changes and problems with the labels.

Even this time, for this album we can say that is a pretty strong death metal offering. Like Diabolical Desolation showed a more melodic approach to this genre, even this one continues on the same style. The speed is pretty much the same one, so expect more brutality but few breaks are remarkable because they take lot of their style from the melodic death metal. “Arrival of the Spectrum Obscure” immediately shows us this blend of speed with more melodic riffs. The production is sharp and really pounding, especially if we consider the drums sound. Even this time, we can notice a more “modern” conception of death metal. This concerns the fast riffs, the production and the vocals that are more screamed than growled.

“Misanthropic Darkzone” at first is quite slow to create a quite good and dark progression. The vocals are more growled and some guitar sections are reminiscent of the mid-era Hypocrisy for the melodic/dark touch. There are few up tempo restarts but nothing more and this is good to maintain the gloom touch that continues with the strange notes of the following “Hollowsphere”. However, suddenly this song literally explodes with a long series of up tempo/blast beats to support nasty death riffs and just few overtures to melody. The lead lines often recreate a sort of “industrial” touch to add more “atmosphere” to the breaks and this is a new thing by this band. The keyboards are not present anymore and the gloominess is only by the other instruments.

Listening to “Target: Dimension XII” is like listening to a band like Hatesphere because the style is more or less the same and I think that this comparison could help you a lot in understanding how the album is. The stop and go are more present on this track and the groove is important too, supporting Gothenburg style melodies. “Deathstar Unmasked” again gives more importance to the groove and quite surprisingly we can listen to clean arpeggios breaks to stop the mid-tempo march. The riffs are far more various and often there are arpeggios on the distorted guitars to create that gloom atmosphere. “A Dynasty of Obediance” is just an industrial intermezzo with incredibly obscure noises and loud volumes.

“Mechanical Future” is more straightforward but with the modern touch, always. “Cold Deep Supremacy” is good for the break after the middle with the dark solo but at this point the tracks seem to be a bit too similar and even the last one doesn’t differ a lot, except for more melodic breaks, especially for the solos.

Coming at the end of this review, I can say that Centinex are constantly changing in style and they are becoming always more and more modern. Again, this is not a masterpiece but a sincere piece of death metal. However, let’s start to forget about the old Centinex…

Target some other dimension - 70%

demonomania, November 24th, 2008

Hey, remember when Swedish melodic death metal was cool? Yes, it was a long time ago, but you can recollect to those hoary aeons of old when it was OK to have an In Flames album. When this style had yet to be carved up and sewn bit by bit into metalcore, or rendered impotent by a painful preponderance of clean vocals, or computerized to the point where you could hit a series of buttons in a recording studio to create melodeath album R:1342.

If you can dimly recall this bygone era, or can unearth cobwebbed traces of it with a miner’s helmet and a pickaxe, then Centinex is a band you’re sorry you missed. Let’s painfully stretch the melodeath = antiquity metaphor, shall we? Centinex was the At the Gates influenced tribe that never built a big pyramid. There’s some artifacts here and there that they were around (members have played in World Below, Mynjun, Amaran, Julie Laughs Nomore (WTF), Demonical, Grave, Interment, Beyond, Regurgitate, Moondark, Dellamorte, S.G.R., Pexilated, Scar Symmetry, Carnal Forge, Sickinside, Incapacity, Uncanny, Dismember, Carnage, Daemon, and Terra Firma - *FUCK*) but they’re not as remembered as such civilizations as Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Soilwork, or Dark Tranquility.

No, the Centinex tribe lived and died in relative obscurity, harvesting the fertile lands and crafting tools from… ok, done.

What we have here, besides a failure to communicate, is a very very fine example of taking the “Slaughter of the soul” formula and rocking it out without cocking it out. Not that that Centinex don’t enjoy the music that they are creating with their phalluses exposed, mind you. They manage to take the pattern, give it their own little twists, and not put it out on the streets to make some money. Clean choruses are absent. Wanky guitar solos are suppressed. Cheesy keyboards are burned alive.

The result is some wonderfully cruel melodic death that doesn’t forget the death – growls, higher Tompaish screeches, full-on breakneck drumming, INTERESTING riffs, good song construction, and bass that doesn’t take a spotlight but adds to the thrashing madness. You can tell all these guys have been around, and know just when to include an interesting break, a nasty solo, or just to steam ahead to injure the listener’s spinal cord. Which makes me wonder – when we metalheads get old, will our necks be all fucked up? You’ve seen those elderly people who are so hunched over that they can’t even look in front of them – bent and broken by age. We just might look like that at 47. Then again, Lemmy seems pretty healthy, so maybe we’ll all be fine.

One of my favorite things about “Decadence” is the song titles. “Target: dimension XII”? Excellent. Fuck Dimension XII – nothing wrong with Dimension XI, mind you – they’re cool over there, but that Dimension XII is full of asshats and should be terminated immediately. And “Deathstar unmasked”? Hmm, that gigantic metallic ball orbiting our planet looks pretty suspicious… HOLY FUCK – it’s the Death Star! Should have figured that out before, now we’re all doomed. The lyrics are quite mature as well, with futuristic shit from outer space nixing humanity on a regular basis. Which makes my past civilization comparison ever more retarded. Oh well.

Throw in some good cover art and I can safely say we’re got ourselves a deal! Sure it is not as good as At the Gates but you can tell they were giving it their best effort. If you’re not already completely jaded by the whole melodic death thing and are willing to dig up a little gem you might have missed, “Prophecies of cosmic cumshots” could be just the disc for you.

7 even-numbered dimensions targeted just for the hell of it out of 10

Originally posted at www.globaldomination.se