Review: Beneath The Massacre - “Mechanics Of Dysfunction”

Quebec has had history of very technical and extreme bands, considering the history of Kataklysm, Cryptopsy and Gorguts. One could also measure the amount of experimental and creative energy of those bands, with Kataklysm being a classic standard bearer on one side, and Gorguts representing how far extreme music can toy with new ideas on the other. Beneath The Massacre is much like Kataklysm in that they represent technical death metal, rather than push it forward.

The formula for the typical Beneath The Massacre song is a mixture of Necrophagist style guitar runs on top of ultra fast blasting drums, with lots of “What if Meshuggah played death metal?” styled single note polyrhythm breakdowns. On top are a pretty low deep tone of death barks spouting the ills of modern society and corporate abuse. And well... that’s it. It’s an intense mixture that’s both powerful and fun live, but with every song being a clone of one another, the beatdown begins to chip away at the listener until the end of the album.

A constant fistfight of guitars and drums would do well in a radio mix of extreme music, as there is the odd hook hidden in a breakdown or guitar run. “The Mechanics Of Dysfunction” is also pretty inoffensive to the standard death metal fan as well, but for the average fan of generally extreme music, “The Mechanics Of Dysfunction” doesn’t quite reach “must have” status.

3/5

Beneath The Massacre
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