Oneirology

The debut full-length from Mexican brutal tech/death newcomers Serocs is one of the more impressive intros for a band of the genre as well as one of the more frustrating as well, managing to contain a lot of elements both distinctive and familiar within their sound which shows their homage of the past and their ability to sustain themselves in the future.

After the ambient noise intro ‘Reckoning’ finishes its atmospheric and chilly open, first track ‘Cabal’ really hints at where the band’s capable of going with a pulverizing drum intro, tightly-controlled chaotic riffing that owes a lot to brutal death metal than the technically-inclined bands they name-check elsewhere, and keeps the energy as well which is quite rare to find in that genre. The fourth track, ‘Changeling’ is the clear stand-out, though, with it’s insane hyper-speed double-bass drumming carrying itself nearly throughout the whole song as it slinks and warps it’s way along its’ many twists and turns. That said, the rest of the band’s best songs are actually back-loaded into the second half, as after the second ambient noise track ‘A Feast of Chalchihotolin,’ it picks up considerably and drops two top-shelf tracks in ‘Mictlan Calleth,’ which ranks up with ‘Changeling’ as the album’s best overall track with lock-step precision drumming, frenzied riffing and one of the better vocal attacks, that seems to have prime-era Dying Fetus all over it before kicking into ’13 B’ak’tun,’ which seems to drop the tech/death in favor of a more brutal death metal assault a la Suture or Fleshgrind before launching into the most chaotic guitar solo on the record and then finally loading on the technically-inclined riffing and patterns at the back, as these three really represent the band at their peak.

Still, there’s an air about this one as the band really seems to have a bit of trouble determining if it can pick between the two different styles it represents. Rather than mesh the two styles together, there’s a consistent theme within the album to favor one style over another as tracks are either over-the-top technical displays or brutality-laden dirges. Second track ‘Metamorphosis’ is a prime example, as it picks a singular guitar riff and repeats it for the duration of the song while it blasts away on drums which becomes quite distracting, yet because the songs’ so short it’s hard to really know where it wants to go. Even the longer tracks, as on ‘To Each His Own’ or ‘Unwanted Protection,’ the favoring of the brutal death metal comes at a complete expense of the technicality they displayed elsewhere and leaves them lacking a distinctive punch. Mostly this is accomplished with the vocals which tend to hover in the Neanderthal-grunting range and stay there so it doesn’t really get a chance to break out or mesh completely with the music, and the album’s overall brevity compounded by three separate interludes certainly doesn’t help matters.

The main problem with the band here is the brevity of its’ attacks, preferring to get in and dish out it’s attacks in such short order that it’s barely noticeable what kind of band it is. This is displayed most clearly in ‘Metamorphosis’ as the band really has no clue if it wants to be a brutal death metal band (at which it’s pretty proficient) or a technical death metal band (at which it’s pretty proficient) yet somehow doesn’t know which style to emphasize, hence the conundrum in the overall ratings. Luckily, there’s enough talent featured in the groups’ members that it could focus on one and be quite successful at it, if it can stop with the ambient interludes and pick a style.