A Life Once Lost "A Great Artist" CD
[Deathwish]
Finally a band that continues to change, grow, and progress with each release! If I didn't have the CD in front of me I'd never in a million years guess that this was A Life Once Lost! Once more they've obviously been practicing... a lot... and this completely erases most all of their past work. Forsaking their initial brand of technical, discordant metalcore (which has since become the latest boring trend), "A Great Artist" focuses far more on odd time signatures and complex rhythmic percussiveness, sounding more like Lamb of God meets Meshuggah than anything. The performances are tighter than ever, the songwriting is far more cohesive and coherent than anything they've done in the past, etc. Now, don't take this statement too far, as this CD doesn't sound too literally similar to Meshuggah (granted there are a lot of similarities, even down to some of the twisted and jazzy lead riffing), but in my opinion this is the record that Meshuggah should have done after "Destroy Erase Improve", because that record was amazing, and everything they've done since sucks ass. So in my opinion, if you're like me and think Meshuggah fell off the fucking boat and sunk after they peaked several years ago, this shit is mandatory. Because A Life Once Lost is picking up the torch and running with it. The vocals are upper midrange snarls, at times getting into some slightly lower growling, and the music is generally midpaced and very chunky, with occasional "experimental" melodic guitar textures coming forth, as well as a few relatively standard dual guitar harmonies that are more akin to what the band has done in the past (but barely, and infrequently). Just check out the brief and overtly melodic "...In Anything Under the Sun", complete with keyboards and distant whispered vocals... fucking amazing. The recording could use more bass guitar, but that's about it. The drums sound dense and fairly natural, the guitar tone is fucking perfect, and the vocals sound great, resting right in with the guitars. I can make out bass parts on occasion, but there's a gap between the drums and the guitars that the low-end needs to fall into. That's nothing major, though. The CD comes in a sleek digipack with some awesome illustrations, once more some of Bannon's finest, using lots of heavily saturated colors and overlapping textures. Very cool. The lyrics tend to be fairly open, with a few recurring types of images expressed, but not so much any concrete subject matter. "Now we are here, We are closer to absolute control more than ever before, My growing desire to conquer the world increases over night, This surge of poetic tyranny gushes through my body's conduits..." This is absolutely their best work yet. Definitely recommended. Do not write this off if you didn't like the band's previous records, because this sounds like a totally different group. (7/10)
Running time - 33:51, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Nevermore Will I Have an Understanding..., ...In Anything Under the Sun, The Wicked Will Rot]
Deathwish Inc. - http://www.deathwishinc.com

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