Casketless

I don't have much in the way of preliminary statements to make about Casketless except for maybe that it was one of the first death metal albums I ever heard and I could have treated myself to a couple thousand things that would have made a better choice than this as far as dipping one's toes into the water goes. Over the years since I first listened to it, my opinion has dropped down lower and lower to the point where I am now, and I'm pretty sure that at this point I'm able to critically evaluate this in an objective manner without nostalgia biting me in the ass whenever I try to say anything negative about it.

I certainly don't hate Casketless, but I'm not the biggest fan of the style it goes for, and there are bands who've done it better in the past by any means. It'd be fair to say that Parasitic Extirpation sound like Brain Drill with a lot less ostentation and a lot more rhythmic technicality; a lot of the riffs used are similar to the ones heard on the more restrained sections of Quantum Catastrophe in that they're rooted in modern tech-death but consisting of fast, jittery, pinch harmonic-tinged tremolo riffs on the lower strings as opposed to the chaotic, shrill sweeping people usually associate with modern TDM. Parasitic Extirpation are also a lot less afraid to chug compared to Brain Drill (though they never really slam; practically no hardcore influence of any sort is present on the album), drawing back on it after a while of speedy riffage to present a couple seconds of respite before jumping back into the fray of technicality. Now, to be fair, there is a fair amount of noodly sweeping on display as well, but unlike Brain Drill's, it's a lot more controlled and doesn't give you the sensation that the sheer mass of notes is starting to meander off past its designated end point (which is a disappointment for me, actually - a bit of shameless wankery would actually make this a fair bit more interesting than it currently is). The solos, on the other hand, tend to be a lot more relentless - and get stuck in an awkward position where they're still too centred on melody to feel truly chaotic, but too chaotic to focus on creating an atmosphere of any sort. They're well-played, but fuck if I could tell you anything about them because they're practically impossible to remember.

The drums present relatively basic beats, but pick up to gravity blast speed during some of the faster parts (which is probably about as fun as the album gets) and manage to throw in some pretty interesting syncopation on the snares and kick drums at times. Meanwhile, the vocal delivery is mainly a pretty mediocre standard-issue low growl, with very little sonic definition, force or tone; weak, strained impish shrieks occasionally pop up as a second track behind the growls. On Casketless, at least, Parasitic Extirpation could have been an instrumental band for all anyone else cared and it wouldn't make a practical difference in the end.

The guitar tone's kind of weak and focuses more on being clear than it does on being loud, and without that sort of crunchiness the album has this perpetual sensation of being kind of neutered. Partially resulting from the weak guitar tone (but also as a result of just plain mediocre songwriting), the music here almost feels like it's consciously trying to avoid being catchy in any sense of the word; I guess you could call it "complex riff composition which requires months of intense evaluation to dissect" but I think it's more like Parasitic Extirpation have no fucking idea how to write a groovy riff. The music doesn't stomp or breakdown, it just mechanically chugs in a rhythmically frustrating (but not particularly interesting) way and expects you to be satisfied with it just because it's a slow section. This compositional flaw can be applied to the album in general when you take note of the fact that Parasitic Extirpation are sometimes just way too jerky for their own good in that they shift through tempos, time signatures and keys in a way that tends to shatter any sense of songwriting. Take for example the first thirty seconds or so of the title track: what the fuck is the band trying to do there? It sounds like three different riffs all trying to fight for the same time slot, and it doesn't sound groovy, nor coherent, nor impressive. It's like the band just tried to shove every single riff they had written into some spot on the album, without even bothering to piece them together considerately.

Some of the riffs are cool, and in general Casketless doesn't ever stoop below boring and mediocre, so I can't really shit all over it or anything like that. The clean instrumental "Ocular Mutation" is pretty cool and frankly it's more consistent than any of the other songs, being the only song with a clear-cut and logical beginning and end, so perhaps Parasitic Extirpation's next album should just be thirty minutes of that. I wouldn't be complaining; it'd certainly better than the herky-jerky tech-death on display on this album. And I suppose that's the ironic thing about Casketless - in their attempts to be less about a weedly display of talent à la Brain Drill, and more about technicality in more traditionally accepted ways such as integrating odd time signatures and overly complex rhythms, Parasitic Extirpation end up coming across as a lot more irritating and grating than the sort of thing they were ostensibly trying to avoid.

Pretty much only actively seek this out if you like your death metal to tell you how much smarter it is than you.