well, first things first: i've grown to love tech death bands. especially those who still play brutal music, and don't sacrifice the brutality for sheer technique.
psycroptic is way high on my list, love them, especially observant
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci5ArebKoWU&feature=PlayList&p=4AE4D5902C83E48B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1[/ame]
cool mix too, slightly annoying kick though. interesting point is that their live sound is pretty much exactly like this cd.
same goes for beneath the massacre, dystopia....BTM is a band that i considered bullcrap for a LONG time. saw them live this year, and they were really fuckin intense....tbh i didn't get it at first, haha. it was a few days later when i actually said to myself man, this band ROCKS. loving their album(s) ever since. dystopia is another example of a band capturing their live sound.....i'm not joking, their sound was exactly like that.
other than that, obscura are great too, albeit a bit too melodic at times. still a great band....it's just that they're NOT a tech death band by any means....more like well done extreme music. interesting thing about their live show was that i actually was more impressed with the singer/guitar player than with their supposed lead guitar player, christian münzner (lives in my area btw), ex necrophagist member. their singer actually often played the more difficult riffs/harmonies, and had way more attitude overall....münzner is just touching the strings, whereas steffen really seems to dig in. i like that!
i'm also a big fan of decapitated (organic...jeesus...),
necrophagist (although they're NOT the tech death gods people try to make out of them as far as i am concerned. there's a reason why the new album get's delayed over and over again, and IMHO it's because they just can't let it go, with all the new bands like obscura putting out great albums. after all necro's fame is based only on two real albums, and they really have a name to loose if the third one isn't as groundbreaking as the other two....which certainly is a difficult task, seeing how much great music is being released nowadays. people just took the necro induced ball and ran with it, and to me it seems as if muhammed struggles with keeping up....),
decrepit birth (somewhat annoying and not as well written as the other bands though).
death - tsop is also a great album, although once again not exactly tech death imho.
spawn of possession is really fucked up, too (in a good way), and i really enjoyed augury's first one....i don't know one single band that sounds even similar to their first CD. the combination of female opera style vocals, growls, and overall death metal brutality is just very unique and great imho. don't quite like their second one as much though....partly because they pretty much dropped the whole opera style thing.
not a big fan of despised icon, though, aside from a few songs....too "core"ish maybe.
as for martyr and theory in practice, well, they are certainly really technical and great players, but to me it's not quite brutal enough (not even death metal as far as i am concerned, esp. martyr)....still great bands of course.
