Dying Fetus
Destroy The Opposition
Relapse
Once again, Relapse continues to play their cards right, signing up another young, crushing talent in Dying Fetus. Destroy The Opposition may be the quartet’s fourth album, but it’s their first to receive full-on worldwide distribution (the previous three were released on the band’s own Blunt Force Records and distributed in Europe through Morbid Records), and it’s about damn time Dying Fetus are getting the exposure they so rightfully deserve, as the album’s their most honed effort yet. Blinding, complex, and blindingly complex, Destroy the Opposition displays Dying Fetus as a well-oiled machine who now are capable of an unfathomable catchiness, each multitudinous passage of theirs kickstarting right into the other and remaining just as catchy, each multitudinous passage of theirs blowing minds just as much as it liquefies them to a messy pulp, the whole of the album rendering itself a highly memorable tornado none-too-vaguely similar to the legendary Terrorizer and their sole recorded document, 1989’s World Downfall. Much of this brain vs. brawn dichotomy stems from the wretch/gurgle vocal interplay between bassist Jason Netherton and guitarist John Gallagher, who often trade off ultra-rhythmic rhymes with each other, especially during the plentiful but punishing mosh parts; and it’s a good, good thing that a lyric sheet is included, difficult as the microscopic print may be to read, for Netherton’s smart, socially conscious lyrics straddle the bookish and the brackish with similar aplomb. Destroy The Opposition: so apt, it’s not even funny.
Relapse, P.O. Box 2069, Upper Derby, PA 19082; http://www.relapse.com