Prejudice - Dominion of Chaos
Hardebaran/TFM - 2004
By Adam McAuley
Prejudice attempt to go for a chaotic, technical style of death metal that can be likened to Cryptopsy or Neuraxis, but that also has shades of the machine-gun style approach of Decapitated. It's the latter moments of the album that are the strongest because I found Prejudice to simply run amok in chaos far too often on this album, with little cohesiveness and far too many pointless time changes. That is my main beef with this band and a lot of technical death metal in general: fluid songs are sacrificed for quick outbursts of musicianship that is at times impressive, but relatively messy. While listening to this album I often found myself being drawn into a riff, often in the aforementioned Decapitated style, before it being overtaken by a series of intertwining ones that many times don't have much direction.
The performances are all very competent, though I'm not a big fan of the vocalist, as could be expected. It's simply the songwriting that needs more focus on the album. Picking a standout track is a somewhat difficult task. "Unobtrusive Hatebreed" seems a little less fragmented than many of the other songs and features several nice sections of rapid-fire riffing. To improve in the future, Prejudice should merely attempt to create more fluid songs by utilizing more of the Decapitated-esque sections and trimming their tendencies to run amok in directionless jams. They aren't as disjointed as I find Origin to be, for example, but when compared to some of their peers like Neuraxis, I'm pretty sure passing on this album wouldn't be the end of the world.
There is simply tons of good death metal to be found outside of what is offered here, but I suppose this could get a mild recommendation to only massive fans of technical death metal. I think this band are achieving below their capabilities, however.
6/10
Official Painkiller Records Website
Official Prejudice Website
Hardebaran/TFM - 2004
By Adam McAuley
Prejudice attempt to go for a chaotic, technical style of death metal that can be likened to Cryptopsy or Neuraxis, but that also has shades of the machine-gun style approach of Decapitated. It's the latter moments of the album that are the strongest because I found Prejudice to simply run amok in chaos far too often on this album, with little cohesiveness and far too many pointless time changes. That is my main beef with this band and a lot of technical death metal in general: fluid songs are sacrificed for quick outbursts of musicianship that is at times impressive, but relatively messy. While listening to this album I often found myself being drawn into a riff, often in the aforementioned Decapitated style, before it being overtaken by a series of intertwining ones that many times don't have much direction.
The performances are all very competent, though I'm not a big fan of the vocalist, as could be expected. It's simply the songwriting that needs more focus on the album. Picking a standout track is a somewhat difficult task. "Unobtrusive Hatebreed" seems a little less fragmented than many of the other songs and features several nice sections of rapid-fire riffing. To improve in the future, Prejudice should merely attempt to create more fluid songs by utilizing more of the Decapitated-esque sections and trimming their tendencies to run amok in directionless jams. They aren't as disjointed as I find Origin to be, for example, but when compared to some of their peers like Neuraxis, I'm pretty sure passing on this album wouldn't be the end of the world.
There is simply tons of good death metal to be found outside of what is offered here, but I suppose this could get a mild recommendation to only massive fans of technical death metal. I think this band are achieving below their capabilities, however.
6/10
Official Painkiller Records Website
Official Prejudice Website
