Fallen Christ
Review: Although this band is aesthetically most similar to Morbid Angel, structurally it resembles the rippingly fast later punk hardcore bands or modern metal incarnations like Angel Corpse, using a tripartite structure by which verse and chorus riffs balance one another, then through a variation - often stringpicked repetition of root notes in the chord progression, or a harmonization of consistent relation thereof - turn to a completing pattern that leads the song back into comfortable re-iteration of initial themes. This simple formula is applied consistently on this album, emphasizing speed and violently adept percussion.
To be one of the greats of the genre, Fallen Christ would have to improve riffcraft to the point of being distinct and clearly communicative, where many of these sonic implements are torn-off fragments of phrase rushed into a battery of rhythm; the guitar-playing approaches unidimensionality by sticking to the beat or a halfway-point offtempo, and this foments a monolithic sound that makes each song indistinct (other bands using a proliferation of short, simple songs also suffer from this, such as Minor Threat and Ildjarn and D.R.I.). Vocals are raspy and noisily inexact to this rigid motion, aided in their desire to confuse by a whispery production which would benefit from doubling these tracks and mixing up bass and midtones.
While there are many powerful aspects to these energetic songs, when taken as a whole, the album loses its luster, as there are many ideas here but few fully-developed ones, creating a wash of similar and self-referential topics that flow past like days spent on the same task. Much as fellow rippers Angel Corpse encountered, the casual nature of basic songs emphasizing speed and violence carries this band only so far, which makes it unfortunate that Fallen Christ did not exist long enough to master these contradictory impulses on a second album.