Album Review: Pathogenic - Crowned in Corpses
Reviewed by Dan Phipps
Modern technical death metal is certainly a different animal compared to bands that I grew to know as I expanded my interest in the death metal genre bands like Spawn of Possession and Necrophagist helped lay the foundation and bands who followed took that foundation and gave it their own twist and I think the sound is very different now but still very much an exciting style of extreme metal. Pathogenic are a Boston based band who’s sound blends the more modern approach to tech death with a big progressive influence and they are set to release a new record in February which goes by the title Crowned in Corpses.
Pathogenic begins this new record with a chunky opening track which if I am honest really does a bad job at setting the tone with a quite robotic and uninspiring composition more in the Djent type sound than anything particularly technical or progressive. Luckily what follows does everything within its power to help me forget how much I disliked the album's opening track and settles me into a very enjoyable slab of technical song craft from the Boston band. Now I am not massive on the rhythm guitar tone on Crowned in Corpses it's a bit too mechanical for my taste, the actual playing is superb with a really nice mixture of chunky heavy riffs mixed with tight lead playing and some nice use of melody which is often under-appreciated with more technical death metal.
The drum sound is absolutely glorious, as the kick drums cut through like a hot knife through butter and really provide a superb form of intensity during the tracks. The drums also sound effortlessly performed which is another area that I really like with this new record as I feel that an easy flowing drum performance helps the album remain interesting. Outside of some clean vocals which I'm not really a fan of, the more pronounced vocal technique really suited the sound that Pathogenic are creating and the performance is incredibly strong. There is also a nice mixture of different vocal approaches within the performance; they are quite subtle at points but the subtle changes really help them stand out.
Crowned in Corpses is a very well constructed set of songs which create a very good record. Yes for my personal taste it does have a couple of areas which I'm not big on but as a whole picture this album is a really solid piece of technical and progressive death metal.
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