Baphomet

Production: Clarity is preserved with an overall substitute cost of some sound compression but the guitar tone is preserved in the dynamic intensity of its bassy distortion.

Review: The original "chunk-style" death metal band, Baphomet use simple compelling rhythmic drive to build a sequence of turnaround style riffs into songs with an overall complexity far beyond the assessment of their parts. Heavy emphasis on downstrumming and strobing muted single-chord rhythm riffing place this band in the New York style of death metal with its quotations from speed metal, grindcore, and early death metal alike: imagine Deathstrike and Repulsion running into Raven on the subway.

As the overall song composition shifts around fundamental rhythms it reveals the centering of each song in patterns and not necessarily tones, allowing a freedom to dynamic range and a vast contrast in each motion simultaneously approaching and deviating from the central thematic core.

Vocals are gutteral chokebore muffled enunciative instruments of ultimate percussion layered on the shuddering guitar master structures that build the basis of this release. The emphasis on simple tempos can make this seem tedious but its overall use of even death metal cliché expands on the rudiments of the genre and the time and hides a very creative and complex musical venture in a context of meaninglessness.