It must be a Russian kind of week here in my house; this time we have 7 H.Target, a technical brutal death metal of the slam variety showcasing their debut full length Fast-Slow Demolition.
As the album title suggests this album ranges from intense tech death to snail’s pace slam demolition, soaking up sheer brutal death metal’s intensity from start to finish. Fast-Slow Demolition is a mixture of previously released tracks from earlier EPs (re-recorded) and new material, but listening to it you wouldn’t know this piece was written at different periods of time.
Now for the musical breakdown: the vocals are standard brutal death metal gurgles, however they aren’t monotonous and actually fluctuate throughout the release, so you aren’t left with the same gurgle over and over like some bands do. The guitars are just a wall of chuggy distortion and precision sweeping, and the bass actually pops out from the wall of ooze every now and again exposing it’s twangy addition to the mix. As for the drums, the bass drum has been tweaked so that there is almost a faint bass drop with every hit, and it just makes for a pulsating in your face attack that when mixed with the guitar and bass work produces a solid wall of jackhammer death metal. Be warned though that the snare on this is a little pingy, if that kind of thing grinds your gears. As a whole I have no qualms with any of the instruments or vocals, it all fits nicely and is able to avoid the stale flatness that many fellow acts fall victim to. The use of samples also is a nice little touch, and it’s definitely not overdone, so there are times in the album where the music breaks and a sample takes over and a whole new vibe is created, allowing the following onslaught to guide you into a new direction and tone than the previous song.
Production wise this album falls in the almost transparent grey area between clean and muddy, for it is too clean to be considered poor and it is just dirty enough to remind you that this is a brutal death album. Overall it is really well put together and there are only a few moments across the entire album that I am not happy with mixing-wise. I will say though that I wish the vocals were a little higher in the mix, but that’s just me nitpicking.
Finally, in regards to how Fast-Slow Demolition ranks to the band’s previous EPs, well it’s like night and day for me. This album does away with the overly strong slappy bass and awful drum recordings in Japan Body Hammer and is much less muddier than the Electric Tools For Electric Human EP. Basically it’s tighter, cleaner and way better in production, so expect something leagues better than the previous efforts.
Overall it is a really fun piece of death metal, and with the varying styles you’re not likely to get bored with it or know what’s coming next, a necessary quality I look for in brutal death metal. If you’re a fan of brutal death or slam I would say this would be a surefire album, but for those just now getting into death metal they may have a hard time keeping up with it all. Either way check it out, it’s fun.
SHIT RATING: GOOD
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