Cephalic Carnage "Xenosapien"

Tracklist: 01. Endless Cycle Of Violence 02. Divination & Violation 03. Molting 04. Touched By An Angel 05. Vaporized 06. Heptarchy 07. G.lobal O.verhaul D.evice 08. Let Them Hate So Long As They Fear 09. The Omega Point 10. Megacosm Of The Aquaphobics 11. Ov Vicissitude 12. Hidden Track Release: 2007 Genre: Death/Grind URL: www.cephaliccarnage.net Label: www.relapse.com

Without much of a warning Cephalic Carnage have been working on their next effort entitled "Xenosapien". I have never been a huge Cephalic Carnage fan because of the way that they write their songs. If we take a look at "Exploiting Dysfunction" or "Lucid Interval" it's extremely apparent in their song-writing structure, or lack thereof, that it is a bunch of crazy off-time guitar riffs thrown together haphazardly without much of a rhyme or reason. There doesn't seem to be any flow to these albums and no real song structure to speak of. Some people call this "Grindcore" but I think it's just CRAP. In 2005 Cephalic Carnage released an album that they called "Anomalies". In listening to this album I found that I enjoyed certain parts of it more than others but overall it wasn't that strong of a release. Nothing there that was really reaching out and grabbed me, to say thus. Well, I figured out something while analyzing these three albums. On "Lucid Interval" and "Exploiting Dysfuction" we have a lot of very cool guitar riffs but nothing solid tying them together. It's like the band just wrote a shitload of riffs and didn't really give much of a fuck how they were going to bring them all together. Then we have "anomalies" which is actually filled with song structure but it seems like they lost that crazy edge that was shown on the previous albums. So now we have song structure, but lack of balls.... well, finally Cephalic Carnage managed to bring these two concepts together and release what I consider to be more or less the only album worth more than an occasional listen. The first song "Endless Cycle Of Violence" comes right out with the strange riffs we are used to from this band and it seems they dissed and dismissed any of the "core" elements that started to rear their head in the last album. "Xenosapien" is fucking bad the motherfuck ass! The vocals have dropped a couple of octaves deep down into the Death Metal netherworld and seems like that's where he is staying. Finally an album from this band that can truly be considered straight up DEATH FUCKING METAL! The riffing on this album is totally insane but it's all tied together very nicely so we don't have this all over the place feel as on their first couple of discs. "Xenosapien" is a perfect blend of all of the good aspects from previous Cephalic Carnage albums without any of the bullshit. This is no fucking nonsense Death fucking Metal. Brutal and sophisticated with many extremely memorable riffs; I adore this album. Anyone who was skeptical about Cephalic Carnage in the past should definitely make it a point to check out their 2007 effort because it fucking blew my mind. It totally took me by surprise and I have now regained faith in a band that I had once left for dead. Cephalic Carnage are back in the death metal archives metal heads!!!!

Rating: 90 % | from SammaelDaemon | Date: 10.05.07 | Time: 00:20	shut down