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Reviews

A Breath Before Surfacing: Death is swallowed in victory

04/09/08  ||  Global Domination

This review was written by ex-staffer/cocksmoker Banesupper.

This disk was sent to me by forum inhabitant Methodical. That was very cool of him. The envelope was full of anthrax too, but I have no hard feelings. Anyway, A Breath Before Surfacing – who have a very long name, which I shall not abbreviate as ABBS, but rather mock throughout my review – hail from Arizona, state of deserts and… deserts I guess. I don’t know what’s in Arizona apart from deserts.

A Broth Before Surfing play death metal, and it is obvious that they know what’s hot and what’s not on the current scene. Though rest assured, there are (as Meth assured me) no average-looking female keyboardists, dressed up as for Halloween on every fucking band photo. None of those. There are, however, forty minutes of pseudo-technical, pseudo-melodic death metal, like quite a few new American bands are putting out these days. A Bread Before Purchasing even make use of that ultra-low electronic bass thud that seems so fucking popular in contemporary death.

From that point of view, A Breed Before Surpassing doesn’t rightly look like something worth stabbing yourself in the face over, and my immediate reaction to this disk was not one of overt joy either. Nonetheless, I’ve come to enjoy “Dearth is Wallowed in Vicary” quite the bit. Why? Because there are some good fucking riffs on this album. There are too many, as there always is when death gets technical, but amongst them are many that deliver the goods. The goods, in this particular case, are not cocaine.

I hate to admit liking a song called “Tr0llz” – and whoever came up with the title needs to be fired by a method I call “scythe to the eyes” – but the song features some pretty fucking wicked guitar work, probably the album’s best. The vocals are exactly what you’d expect: deep growls and mid-pitch screams. Both are pulled off well, and there are zero pig squeals in earshot.

The title-track is spiced up with some gang shouts, and these work surprisingly well. It would have been cool to hear more of that stuff on the album – it’s certainly a fresh breath of mint-scented air. And that might just be the album’s greatest weakness: it doesn’t really distinguish itself. There are so many bands right now doing exactly what A Mentos Before Googling are doing. The vocals, riffs, production all sound just a bit too familiar.

And lastly, I find it really annoying when albums feature a cover I need to mention in my review, because I can never find a natural way of bringing it up without breaking the flow. You know, like I’m doing now. Anyway, this album’s cover looks wicked cool, depicting a huge-ass fish swallowing a comparably small-ass ship. Unfortunately, the band decided to slap their huge, ugly logo (that thing that looks like a paint spill) on top of it. Shame.

7 huge-ass fish out of 10.

  • Information
  • Released: 2008
  • Label: Mediaskare
  • Website: A Breath Before Surfacing MySpace
  • Band
  • Dustin Curtis: vocals
  • Trevor Gunning: drums
  • Scott Whisenant: guitar
  • Jacob Green: guitar, studio bass
  • Tracklist
  • 01. Summoning the Lord of the Pit
  • 02. Tr0llz
  • 03. Disharmony Among Choirs
  • 04. Ray Road
  • 05. Cosmetic Abomination
  • 06. Writhing
  • 07. Just What the Monster Ordered
  • 08. Looking Into the Sun Without Going Blind
  • 09. A Night in Terror Tower
  • 10. Trainwreck
  • 11. Death is Swallowed in Victory

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