Decapitated
The Negation
Earache
Decapitated’s latest full length, The Negation, wins the award for dumbest concept in track listing. The eight songs on this album are split into approximately 20 second increments, making the album contain 99 audio segments. But each time the disc reaches a new track, my computer’s audio program provides a small half second of dead air, thus making it so that each song has 20 half second spaces interwoven with the music. Moronic concept, and completely annoying!
The music, however, is high quality, violent and devastating death metal of the utmost caliber. The vocalist has his menacing growl down to a T; its guttural nature accentuates his evil intentions. The drummer plays a rather unique style of death metal drumming. He fancies the occasional blast beat, but when he does, it’s not overbearing or out of place – as is the case with most corny death metal outfits these days. He is certainly one of the better drummers that I’ve ever heard. At times, he sounds like a programmed machine. He shifts accents and signatures effortlessly, and does so without sounding as if he attended the Institute of Rock Drumming. The guitars have a scraping quality to them. The addition of an ample bass guitar (with plenty of low end) makes it sound as if Decapitated has finally found the perfect marriage of the best parts of black and death metal.
The Negation is incredibly intense, in terms of delivery, song craft, musicianship, vocal stylings and overall presentation. This stuff is not for the novice metal fan; the songs are quite technical, mathematical and mind-numbingly complicated. In other words, you’re be advised to use a calculator and thesaurus when enjoying this one. These guys are as good as hype predicts, and The Negation is basically perfect, in every sense of the word.
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