Neuraxis "Truth | Imagery | Passage" 2xCD
[Willowtip]
This is a killer double-CD reissue of damn near everything this Canadian technical melodic death metal act has recorded to date - including their most recent "Truth Beyond..." CD, 1997's "Imagery" full-length, the "Passage Into Forlorn" EP from 2001, and bonus material to boot. I have to say, it sounds damn good, too. When I first heard the original pressing of "Truth Beyond..." I was mildly irritated by the recording and not all that taken by the songwriting. I liked it, but I wasn't blown away. And while I'm still not flipping out over this, the remastering job definitely seems to have smoothed things over nicely, and a lot of the riffs are hitting me harder this time out. As with some of their fellow countrymen, Neuraxis certainly flaunts their complexity rather openly at times, blasting through insane speeds and flurries of technical riffs without much concern, but they make up for the almost blinding changes with a lot of shifts in tempo, as well as a healthy dose of far more melodic and tangible riffs that acts as the meat on the bones of the songs. The slightly slower riffs and chord progressions possess more feeling and power, and they balance these elements perfectly with the furious speeds and more typical tremolo picking standards. Mild melodic Swedish riffing seeps in at times, as do some excellent Cynic-isms, but for the most part I'd hold this more in line with Cryptopsy and the like, though I enjoy this far more because the songwriting is much stronger and more energetic. I love the out of nowhere clean breaks that they effortlessly sweep into (see "Fractionized" especially, or the beautiful acoustic instrumental "Memento"), and there are a lot of subtly creative riffs in general, be they sludgier and unexpected chords, traditional metal structures, intense dissonance, or flashy alternate picked runs. And the drumming is absolutely awesome, building on constant momentum with shitloads of little accents and fills to keep things interesting... this guy's definitely a player who thrives on atmosphere. The vocals shift between different growling styles, some lower and more brutal, others floating in the midrange or leaning towards screams. The "Imagery" album is much heavier musically and vocally, focusing more on contrasting guttural growls/high sneers and fairly typical death metal riffing spiced up only by frequent changes in tempo and some unexpected rhythmic devices. The tempos aren't as consistently fast, and the riffing not as colorful, but it still has its moments. It's not what I would call "brutal death metal", though it leans more in that direction especially because of the vocals, but it definitely sounds like a fairly different band. Hell, "Cyberwar" even has an early Carcass snarl going on, which came as a surprise to me. Overall this material's far from as memorable, but it's alright. Certainly more aggressive and sort of unbalanced stylistically (what with the occasionally odd gore grind influences)... Then the "Passage Into Forlorn" EP is definitely where the stronger songwriting started to come into play with the energetic melodic riffs and unexpected shifts in dynamics. I'd say the tracks are more straightforward and still flirting with a significant level of the melodic Swedish styles than they are today, and the screaming vocals play into that, but the leads and tempo changes, not to mention overall variety and drum performance, were definitely getting more towards what the band's doing in the present. The bonus tracks include an excellent transitional piece from 1999 called "In Silence" and "...Of Divinity" performed live. Also worth mentioning is that the songs here are all fairly short compared to most such bands, rarely even hitting four minutes, and almost never topping five, so things tend to keep moving pretty well even when there are some similarities floating around. As far as production, "Truth Beyond..." sounds very fucking strong here. Better than the original for sure. The drums are a bit up front, but the tones are kept in check against a great wall of super crisp and honed guitars, you can hear the bass well enough, and the vocals fall right into place. I think being able to hear even more prominence in the basslines would be nice, but the clarity is amazing right now, so that's more important since the right amount of density is certainly in place. The earlier material is of course less polished and less clear, with the debut being a little muddy and "Passage..." heavy on the midrange. The basslines are often quite defined on the EP though, and the songwriting there certainly carries the less than perfect recording fine enough. The layout's been handled somewhat oddly, as the booklet is basically the "Truth Beyond..." booklet (only the lyrics for those tracks are included, and the cover has no mention of the prior two records) with a few revisions to include small images of the album covers and credits for "Imagery" and "Passage Into Forlorn". The traycard is where the more detailed accounting of tracks and such have been added. I can understand the way things have been handled, but I honestly think the cover and the booklet should've been reworked a bit more to better balance out the coverage of each record, rather than acting more like a reissue of "Truth Beyond..." with a bonus disc (even if that's what it is in theory). Lyrically the material is sort of what you'd expect from a technical progressive death metal band: "A stagnant soul is a dying soul. Music expresses the cadence of emotions. Temporary dimensions interposed. Realities and values of progress are not psychological projections..." As if all of that wasn't enough, there are a whopping 10 live videos included on the CD-Rom portion of disc 1, from various shows, etc. None of the videos are great (I actually couldn't get some of them to play), but every now and then you'll get a good shot of the guitarists' fretwork and it's interesting to observe. Being nitpicky, if I could change anything here it would be to have had the tracks appear in reverse chronological order, opening the second disc with "Passage Into Forlorn" rather than "Imagery", as the latter is certainly the most bland area of the disc, and would've been better suited at the end for continuous playback of the entire set. But this is, for the most part, a well documented release of this band's history as far as lineup changes, stylistic progression, etc. The most important thing is having the music be readily available, and that's a surefire success with this. This puppy only sells for a mere $11, so if you missed "Truth Beyond..." the first time around stop sleeping on it and grab tons of additional content along with it right here. (8/10)
Running time - 1:42:22, Tracks: 35
[Notable tracks: ...Of Divinity, Impulse, Fractionized, Truth Beyond Recognition..., Cyberwar, Psycho-Waves, Unite, To Pacify, In Silence]
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