If a band is intent on devoting a third of their album to a composition, I would hope I would leave it with a strong impression of the band's sound. There is ambition but no coherence, nothing to congeal the epic together as a definitive musical statement. In keeping with the other less-successful prog epics I've heard, "Autotheism" offers up some interesting ideas, but ultimately falls apart under its own weight. There's no better example of this than the multi-part suite and title piece. The Faceless remain good at what they know, but whenever there's a detour, the vision feels undercooked. It should by all means work, but by the end of Autotheism I'm left thinking like the album might have been best contained within the tech death sphere. Allusions to Dream Theater, multi-part epics and clean vocals are all well-off the beaten path for the style. The Faceless have certainly made themselves out to be a band who takes the road less travelled in terms of technical death metal. I usually love it when bands put a progressive, or unexpected swing on a genre like tech death- most of the time it gives the music a tinge of spontaneity that may have otherwise been lost in the sea of sweeps and robotic notation. The guitars entwine excellently with Lyle Cooper's drumwork, and the guitars navigate the album's more challenging parts with style. Having just recently seen them headline the 2014 Summer Slaughter tour with the likes of Archspire, Rings of Saturn etc., there's no doubt The Faceless can bring it to the table in terms of sheer technical instrumentation. The central style finds itself at a crossroads between modern tech death and Dream Theater-variety progressive metal the mention of that combination alone should spark some doubts, but The Faceless can, and often do make it work in their favour. I did enjoy Planetary Duality quite a bit, and there are plenty of moments on Autotheism that recall The Faceless' past achievements. "Planetary Duality" sees the best aspects of deathcore and death metal unite in a feat of stunning musicianship that, if anything, should bring the two camps closer to each other.Above anything else, The Faceless' Autotheism is a problematic album. Although the band's influences are obvious, they play into The Faceless' own tricks as inspiration, not as borrowed elements from those bands. Unlike many deathcore aspirants, "Planetary Duality" isn't instantly forgettable: it's both extreme and beautiful without ever compromising the unwritten rules of the genre. Through sci-fi imagery, state-of-the-art production, clever use of melody, and an underlying progressive drive, The Faceless have been able to create an ultra-modern album which is far more accessible than is the norm in the genre. In fact, it's these playful elements รก la Between The Buried And Me together with the progressive aspects familiar to fans of Cynic that lift The Faceless from the host of other bands of this type to be shepherds rather than sheep. The sci-fi context in particular is a welcome change to the usual death and gore imagery bands of this kind like to play with, and although the robotic voice that occasionally interrupts the vocalist's guttural growl sounds strange, it never sounds out of place. Keene's virtuosity in not only shredding the shit out of his axe, but in song-writing, too, keeps things interesting throughout. It puts a smile on my face to know that hardcore poster boys with clean haircuts and death metal t-shirts can pull this off better than most grizzly metal dudes who are true to the cause, so to say, and honestly, who gives a fuck if their lifestyles don't reflect the music they make when it's this good. Yes, the production is clean, and lo and behold, there are some clean vocals here and there, but "Planetary Duality", like it or not, is first and utmost a technical death metal album and a very good one at that. "Planetary Duality" comes to a time where deathcore is outpacing death metal, yet despite the fact that everything about this band indicates that they belong in that pack, The Faceless have taken care not to blend in. So fast, that the undersigned had to listen to the opening riff of "Prison Born" multiple times before admitting that yes, that sound did, in fact, come from shredding on an electric guitar rather than a chainsaw cutting through thick wood, and that he has earned every letter of his pseudonym. The Faceless is the brainchild of guitarist Michael "Machine" Keene, who reasons that if it no longer suffices to play fast, the solution must be to play even faster. The Faceless Planetary Duality Written by: AP
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