Album Review: Cystectomy - Deprive to Hollowness
Reviewed by Daniel Phipps
Opening with a harsh sample which can only be described sounding like the slaughtering of pigs Cystectomy an international collection of musicians are here to welcome you to a collection of unnerving and utterly savage tracks. The sounds of slaughter fade an in their place comes the putrid onslaught of slamming riffs to open the band’s debut Deprive To Hollowness.
Cystectomy don’t tease the listener with what to expect on Deprive To Hollowness. If you have come looking for a massive dose of slamming death metal that’s what you're going to get. The guitar and drum battery of Oscar Ortega & Juan Pablo Flores, get straight to work as soon as the opening samples end, they deliver a substantial pounding to your ear drums with a severe dose of brutal slamming riffs. The final member of the international trio is frontman Randy Leung whose guttural vocals echo through the tracks with the all putrid wretchedness fans of brutal death metal will love.
Cystectomy are going to hit a lot of brutal death metal fans criteria, however there are areas which I personally feel do lack at times. I have no doubts of the bands overall musical ability however my complaints are that Cystectomy could bring much more to the table with Deprive To Hollowness. Tracks like Holocaust Witness and Past Life Amnesia provide better straight up brutal riffs which as a personally are far more enjoyable to listen to and far better than some of the slam riffs which over time do get repetitive. I feel that if Cystectomy built the songs around those straight up brutal riffs the album would have done far more for me and given the slams much more of an intense presence on the record. I’m also not a fan of using sub drops on records I find them totally unnecessary and do not add to the guitars intensity if anything it loses it in my honest opinion. This is a shame as other than that the production values on Deprive To Hollowness are spot on. Cystectomy do keep things interesting as the record progresses the albums midway point Psychic Boundary giving you a short yet sweet blast of mid paced death metal which is just as heavy as the more up paced tracks.
With Deprive To Hollowness and it’s relentless brutality Cystectomy do bring a strong output to the table. It will be more appealing to a certain demographic of brutal death metal fans more than others, if you are really into a straight up slamming death metal juggernaut in the vein of Cephalotripsy or Vulvecomy then Cystectomy are going to tick all the boxes you want.
