Circle of Dead Children "Zero Comfort Margin" CD
[Willowtip]
Despite enjoying their earlier works, I haven't followed Circle of Dead Children's recorded output over the years, and I hate to say it, I really do, but this record makes me feel like I might not have missed anything, because from a recording standpoint this is quite possibly the worst sounding record that Willowtip has ever released. Just when Steve Austin was starting to slowly redeem himself as a producer in my eyes, this extremely weak and inefficient sounding 20-minute onslaught of otherwise focused grindcore hits my eardrums and reminds me why I've always dreaded his recording work. I mean, this thing sounds like a crappy demo or maybe a set of rough mix pre-production reference tapes or something. The entire mix is distant, especially the drums, the bass is almost nonexistent most of the time, the guitars are generally thin and powerless with a huge sheen of noisiness lingering above (the sessions are pretty inconsistent, so some tracks are significantly thicker but the noisy sheen and sense of inefficiency remains constant), and the strained vocal growls/snarls are a little more distinguishable than everything else, but the manner in which they were documented makes them sound way more forced or strained than they probably are in reality. The only thing I don't like from a performance standpoint is that the vocals sometimes do that squealing pig kind of texture, but some of the prevalence of that sound might be due to the recording, it's hard to say. Musically it's basically a slab of contemporary grindcore that jumps from churning power chords and frantic drum fills to flurries of technical riffing and caustic arrangements that speed things up considerably. I'm not that big on the songwriting, nothing totally blows me away, but... it's really hard to say how these songs would communicate with a stronger set of production values. And, if nothing else, with averaging running times of about a minute, there's not that much time to get bored. Admittedly all of interludes of samples and noisescapes do create a hitch in the flow that I feel is unnecessary, but some of those passages are actually pretty cool as standalones, so at the very least those elements don't suffer in that regard. The much longer, slower, and more discordant closer, "For Black Eyes Only (a.k.a. Depopulate: Tears of Illuminati)" is my personal favorite, as it stands apart from the other tracks and the added breathing room creates a stronger sense of intensity as opposed to the jarring speeds and chaotically arranged riffs heard elsewhere. They also drop a cover of "Playdumb" by Hideous Mangleus, which does manage to stand out just a bit from the band's own work. The best thing about the release is the layout, which totally kicks ass. The booklet is jam packed with awesome imagery collaging different medical diagrams of internal organs and such with similarly high contrast imagery for socio-political commentaries and just generally cool visual aesthetics that accompany the abstract yet suggestive lyrical content: "Gape down into these brains as brilliant glistening mercury shoots through each tender twisting channel, May it roll off and sink deep through the soil's pores to gag every last worm and trigger Mother Earth herself into heaving us all out into obliterated space..." But I don't know, to be completely honest this is a pretty flimsy record. I'd attribute at least 60% of that to the unbearable recording, but the band's own songwriting simply doesn't particularly strike me on this outing either, so... I just can't get into this beyond the awesome artwork and a couple of strong tunes. (4/10)
Running time - 20:11, Tracks: 15
[Notable tracks: The System as the Master Deceiver, For Black Eyes Only (a.k.a. Depopulate: Tears of Illuminati)]
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