Review: Resurrecturis “The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell” CD

It's been something like five years since this Italian death/thrash band's last full-length, but this is my first exposure to them. I'm not quite sure what to make of this record because aside from a recording that I find to be somewhat weak and ineffective, I'm not really a big fan of their jumbled songwriting either. It's not super fast death metal or anything like that, they mix up the tempos a lot and drop some thrashy rhythms or sludgier midpaced chord progressions (check out the fairly memorable "The Hate"), and some of the faster parts have a cool classic death metal sound, but... it's still not doing much for me as a whole. I do like the forceful vocal growls, those are definitely better than average, and some of the more dissonant chords and slower passages are interesting, I'll give 'em that. The sound quality needs work, though. I could live with it if the songs were really good I guess, but it sounds like someone accidentally sucked out almost all of the bass guitar, and the drums are really clicky and sort of distract from the guitars a little bit. Of course the guitar tone isn't heavy enough and the mix feels a little distant as well, but what can you do? The bassist seems really good and does a few technical runs high on the neck that do pop out, but it would be really nice if they could give him a little more space. "Living Reification" has a bunch of riffs that sound like total 80's thrash (at which point even the recording takes on more of a dated mid-80's thrash connection), and I'd love to hear the band lean in that direction more often (the weird singing vocals make no sense to me however, they sort of ruin the killer melodies in the song). "Sleeping Reason" opens with some awful rocked out singing as well, and I just don't get that. It makes no sense in the context of the record and is simply not good. The sludgy rock riffs I can handle, it's a little disjointed, but I can appreciate that diversity, and vocal variation is fine, but it doesn't work here. "In Art's Death" is a nice midpaced piece with some killer dissonant lead lines, and I think that's a good example of what their diversity is best used for. Aside from a very strange album title there's some incredibly strange artwork here. The booklet folds out to reveal the lyrics and a four-panel piece of art that's just bizarre, I don't even know where to begin to describe it! There are lots of dirty colors and spraypainted faces (I think) in a hotel room type of setting. Totally unusual. The lyrics reference hate and oppression and things of that nature, seeming to have some sort of social commentary involved, but I'm having a hard time deciphering the message here: "Broken lives and destroyed against distress, They have unleashed a retaliation created by hate, Face to face against a wall, Detestable their scorn against everything that is mediocre..." Like I said, I'm not quite sure what to make of this record. I mean, the best parts are damn good, but then there are all of these other influences floating around bulking up the songs and stripping away some of the focus. I like this more with repeated listens, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, but I think a much stronger EP could've been made using just the best songs from this album. There might be too many disconnected influences going on for the band's own good?