Lunatic

I have been searching for great progressive/technical death metal bands for quite some time. The Faceless sparked my interest in tech-death a few years ago with the album Planetary Duality, which I still consider to be one of the best albums of the genre. But PITN have certainly outdone The Faceless with Lunatic. What isn't there to love here? It's brutal, technical, and has lots of progressive elements too.

The mixing here is absolutely phenomenal, allowing each instrument to be heard clearly. All of the instruments sound good (no, no drummers beating empty paint cans here), and the sound is clear enough to be enjoyable without losing any brutality. What I love the most is how well you can hear the bass, especially since the bassist is amazing. Overall, the album has a very brutal and technical sound, while also being very progressive. Ultra fast playing, with slower parts that have a jazzy feel. There is not a boring moment to be found here, minus the minutes of silence on the last song.

The drummer does an excellent job on this album. He keeps everything tight, while displaying crazy speed and incorporating some unique fills. Surprisingly, there are few blast beats to be found, partly due to his jazzy playing. When he does blast, he keeps it tight and fast, but somehow manages to make the blast sound more brutal than other drummers. If I had to compare him to another drummer, Mario Duplantier from fellow French-based technical/progressive death metal band Gojira is probably the only fair choice. Drummers everywhere will love this.

As for the bass and guitars, a similarly excellent performance is made. The bass is very audible, and it kicks ass. Whether he's following the guitar, or doing his own thing, the bassist keeps things very interesting. Similarly to the drummer, the bassist has a kind of jazzy style. During the slow parts, he really shines through with some great fills. The guitar player makes sure this album doesn't come off as too jazzy by keeping things brutal with super technical riffs. The guitar work here is very interesting, and sometimes sounds a bit on the experimental side, which is super cool. Both strings players bring a lot to the table.

The vocal performance here is perhaps the least interesting, but still enjoyable. There isn't much going on but low growls, but they are executed well and fit the music. The vocalist knows when to growl and when to shut up, unlike some other vocalists out there (yes, I'm talking to you Infant Annihilator). If you want variety in the vocals, you won't be pleased, but I think the vocals fit well and do what they need to bring it together.

Give this album a listen, and you probably won't regret it. If nothing else, you can enjoy some of the most interesting technical/progressive death metal out there. Standout tracks: Lunatic Factory, Strong, Monkey's Masturbation.

Pitbulls In The Nursery is a technical/progressive death metal band from France. While their overall influences can be traced to other styles beyond metal, the performance on here is rooted in those styles already mentioned. This is the band's debut record and shows an incredible amount of talent.
The root of this bands sound is most definitely rooted within the death metal realm, but they explore so much more on this debut. From the technical and progressive playing styles exhibited by the instrumentalist to the use of more obscure lyrical topics. Every influence can be heard, but is melded into new shapes and forms that make them what PITN wants them to be.

Influences can most obviously be drawn from bands like Meshuggah, Cynic, and Atheist. These can be attributed to the bands love for more groove-based riffs while making them wildly technical. The occasional jazz-fusion break appears here and there throughout but aren't as present in the sound as the more aggressive side of the band. The more progressive side of the band is made clear on the first song on this record, Lunatic Factory, expressing a technical groove for the basis of the song, while those Cynic-influenced moments appear during the chorus. While the entirety of instrumental track Antagony is almost a tribute to Cynic and Atheist fusion.
The musicianship on this record blows many newer bands away and puts these guys near the top for new contenders. Every instrument is heard on this record and no musician ever gets left is the background. While the guitars do remain the instrument most will hear, the drums are always keeping up with the rest of the guys in the band and is never just providing blast-beats. The bass is also very impressive on this record, always being near the front of the sound and comes out for key and memorable parts of songs.

As already stated, the bass is a thing that this band has going for them. Bassist Francois Ugarte includes elements in his overall tone that can be traced to more jazz and funk styles. These are all utilized in the band's sound, whether it's the technical bass line provided for the end of the chorus of Impact or the funk beginning riffs provided on Corrupt TV, this guy knows how to play.
Drummer Jerome Farion's drumming on this record is not just what many will attribute to a technical death metal band. A lot of the drumming on this record could be compared to the early work of Meshuggah drummer, Tomas Haake, utilizing more obscure grooves as well as bits of more jazz oriented fills and patterns. He does of coarse do more traditional death metal blast-beats on these songs, namely on Corrupt TV, but they never withstand the entire song like many bands.

While guitarist Mathieu Commun and Simon Thevenet both exhibit a lot of technical and progressive playing abilities on this record. While they provide grooves that are somewhere between Meshuggah-like grooves and Dream Theater string weedling, they never cross the line into complete wankery territory. Solos on this album are utilized in more odd fashions, never using a typical styled solo more than once. These solos are more comparable to those of their influences, like Meshuggah or Cynic, being very melodic, but very odd sounding.
Vocalist Julien "Panda" Foucault's vocals on this album are more death metal oriented. The vocals don't change a lot, remaining mainly low and in the range of most death metal vocalist, so the singer doesn't particularly standout as the best musician, but he'll change it up in certain songs. Tracks like Calibrated or Corrupt TV feature bits of his spoken vocals to change up this monotony. Though he is not the best vocalist in death metal, he is creative enough to create some unique vocal patterns that do show some talent.

3 tracks on this debut are taken from the band's 2001 demo. Those tracks include: Impact, Strong, and Monkey's Masturbation, and these are the shortest tracks on the record. These tracks are less technical than the rest and feature a more Meshuggah mixed with later period Death sounds. Being progressive but more rooted in traditional death metal styles.
The final track on the record, In My Veins, is over 16 minutes long. Though the actual track itself is onl about 5:30 minutes, but the rest of the track is not just silence. About 7 minutes in, a sitar comes in and begins to play, quite elegantly. Around 9:30 minutes drums, bass, and a clean guitar come in a accompany it, giving it an interesting sound. The track begins moving from more fusion sounding into a more metal sound that was exhibited on the rest of the album.

Overall, this record is extremely promising. Sounding like an interesting mix between technical and progressive metal where all the musicians are talented and can all play their instruments well enough to craft songs that allow them to show off but still remain catchy. Fans of technical and progressive music will find a lot of good playing on this record and should take the time to look this band up.

Highlights: Lunatic Factory, Impact, Corrupt TV, Monkey's Masturbation, La Norme, In My Veins

Originally written for:
http://dontcountonitreviews.blogspot.com

So here we have a release from a band straight out of France. The first thing you're going to notice about this five-piece technical death metal outfit is the name. Pitbulls in the Nursery? That's fucking sick as hell. You get all these bands with "brutal" names like Force Fed Human Shit and Fecalized Rectal Sperm Spewage, but really, what you're going for is a name that's simple and not grotesque in its actual terms, but when it's all mixed together, you've got something that'll make people either laugh their heads off or jump in shock. This is living proof that you can make a brutal name without the words "shit", "sperm", "pubescent desire", or "eating the tits of dead fat girls".

Well, what do you know? I've actually started praising this band and I haven't even started talking about the music. I'm still on the band's goddamn name. Well, that's just the thing: this album is just great in so many ways. It's brutal, and all the elements - chanting, ambience, jazz interludes, guitar solos - they all fit together so well. This band took a total of five years after releasing their demo to create this, and it's evident they worked their ass off to make one of the best albums ever to grace this earth.

Let's start with the guitars. Now everytime I talk to a metalhead and bring up technicality and awesome guitarwork, Necrophagist becomes the topic of conversation. That band is not technicality to me, it is heartless wanking. Here, the guitars have somehow stepped over the imaginary boundary of technicality and wanking, yet this isn't wanking. I mean, the guitars are just as technical as Necrophagist's (I mean, listen to 0:36 to 0:53 of "Calibrated", to give one of many examples), but they stay in your head and the riffs are actually original and memorable. Give this album several spins and you'll be able to remember the majority of the riffs. The guitars are constantly making some riff that is catchy and can stay in your head forever. The magic of it all is that this is still death metal. Necrophagist play death metal, then technicality; this is truly technicality mixed right in with the blast beats and the death growls. There are jazzy sections in the album, but they don't feel forced or out of place; the song will give itself a little time to let the death metal presence radiate off, and then a jazz interlude will come in. Then, before you know it, it's packing distortion and an amp back into the formula, and you're back into the original energy of it. (The entire 2-minute song "Antagony" is an instrumental jazz piece and it is absolutely beautiful, if not a bit depressing. On top of that, the 10-minute hidden outro track is predominantly jazz as well.) On top of this, you've got the solos, which usually have groove, melody, and a swinging tempo. The solos generally aren't technical, but given the surrounding music, do they have to be? It feels completely natural for the guitarists to take a little breather from the endless craze of the guitarwork. And the bass...the bass is there! Yes, there is a bass here in this mix and you can hear it over 90% of the time. It's only following the rhythm guitar, but its tone is strong and it adds a lot to the music.

The drummer is very fast and he's not adhering to many traits of death metal, besides blast beats. The sound of the kit is strange; the snare sounds like a trash can lid (I have heard people complain about this before, but honestly, it's not that bad), the bass drum has a nice, thick sound to it, the toms sound industrial (that's a good thing), and the cymbals sound very pleasing to the ears (they have a very nice "ding"). His actual technique is very fun to listen to: a somewhat technical beat on the the snare and cymbals, mixed with a few seemingly incoherent blasts on the double bass throughout. It sounds a bit awkward at first, but you soon realize it's part of the beauty of the subtle insanity of the album in general.

The vocalist (who is not in the band anymore) communicates mostly using death growls. (Grunts are not to be found.) The growls are very gruff, and they are loud and yellish by growling standards, but it doesn't hamper anything. The vocalist's accent is not hidden by his performance most of the time, and I personally think it benefits the music. Sometimes, he'll let loose a black metal-style snarl that sounds particularly awesome. It fits the overall industrial sound of the music, and it doesn't disrupt the flow of the song as some bands' screams do.

Well, I have said nothing but positive things about this album. Why, then, is it only getting a 96, and not a 100? For one, the vocalist's voice sometimes sounds like he's been smoking too much pot or something; it's too hoarse. The other problem is a bit more evident once you read the lyric book: the band's English isn't as fluent as it could be. Sometimes grammatical errors pop up; at others, words are mispronounced (fon-uh-tics instead of fanatics) and emphasis isn't on the proper syllables. It's nitpicking, I know, but I'm an OCD guy. Besides, theoretically, an album review is designed to help you see the album's good qualities and its flaws. Well, here are its flaws.

Overall, this is a very great album and I doubt anyone will fail to like at least one song this CD has to offer. It's an interesting combination of different elements of music and it's unique in its own way. The technicality of it all warps in with the other elements flawlessly and it's integrated perfectly. I was addicted to this album after first hearing it, and it's likely you will become addicted to it, too. Listen at your own risk.

There is an endless list of generalisations and stereotypes that exist about different nations and the people/communities that permeate them. One such stereotype is that New Zealanders fuck sheep, another that says that all Philippino’s eat is pigs knees and chicken feet. Of course some of these are based in reality. However, one I cant get my head around is the claim that there is no metal scene in France, or very little. When it comes to my own favourite bands, a great deal of the best are French, including Benighted, Kronos, Gorod etc, and another quintet called Pitbulls in the Nursery.

PITN play a style of technical death metal that doesn’t revolve around trying to put you to sleep by trying to play in 4 different time signatures at once. This music is flawless in its own peculiar way, and one of the only reasons that I deducted points is because I don’t listen to it as regularly as I used to (although this could be more due to my evolving tastes). They have developed a very unique jazzy sound, where the emphasis has been diverted from melody into rhythm, which makes the album extremely entertaining to listen to.

First off, the production. Every instrument can be clearly heard and recognised on this album, but each of them sound slightly altered compared to what you would find on a regular death metal album. The guitars have a harsher edge, and the focus has been taken off distortion for the sake of distortion. The bass is clearly audible but has more of a twangy characteristic that suits the music very well. The drums are produced *amazingly* well. Each of the individual drums and cymbals etc has a very unique, precise sound, especially the snare and the bass drum. Finally, Panda’s vocals are again different to regular death metal vocals, for me they took a while to warm up to but now they seem to compliment the music very nicely. All in all, you could listen to this album 4 times in a row without getting bored, simply by focussing on each of the respective instruments and taking in all that they have to offer individually.
As mentioned above this is a highly rhythmic album. This is accentuated with some ingeniously dynamic drum patterns and fills, never once does he resort to blasts. It is obvious that Jerry is an extremely resourceful and intuitive instrumentalist. The drums blow me away every time I hear this album.

Although for the most part the bass assists the drums in forming the rhythmic sound of the album, it also tends to deviate from the path the guitars carve through your head to wander off on its own tangent, adding yet another awesome layer. There are a few bass solos sprinkled throughout the album as well, for instance in Lunatic, at about 21 seconds in, and also in Monkey’s Masturbation at 12 seconds. You can hear a lot of jazz influences in the bass (in fact in all the instruments) and when they each give each other a moment to rest, this really shines through.

And then we have the guitars, carving a constantly inspiring path through the music while playing around and toying with each other, creating some intriguing interplay. They still retain the rhythmic aspects of the album, while creating some unconventional leads (note: NOT “unconventional” like Psycroptic or any of the other bands that come together to form the sea of technical death metal mediocrity).

The vocals are what they are, while being slightly different to your average death metal grunter, there is no variation and nothing is particular understandable. However this is only a small detractor, and in fact they can be ignored if you choose to do so.

Throughout the album there is an assortment of jazzy interludes and intros etc that add some extra flavour to the album. These cleaner sections are always very pleasing to the ears, my favourite section being the two and a half minute track Antagony. Very cruisy stuff that fits perfectly. Songwriting on this album is again, very unique. No verse-chorus-verse structures to be seen for miles, musical themes are developed over the entirety of the tracks, and the inclusion of the aforementioned jazzy interludes breaks it up a little bit as well. This overall style helps to convey the title of the album, especially on the title track - everything is precise and calculated but somehow still doesn't follow the conventional thought patterns (the drumming greatly assists in this).

Overall, Pitbulls in the Nursery have released an outstanding album. While not particularly brutal or aggressive, it manages to thoroughly grasp your attention for the whole fifty seven and a half minutes of its course. As a side note, when listening to Monkey’s Masturbation, try to picture just that. I can see the little guy going at full speed! (the filthy ape) If slightly offbeat, unique death metal is your thing, you owe it to yourself to have a listen to Lunatic.