Watchmaker "Kill.Crush.Destroy."
Wonderdrug Records
2002
by Nathan Pearce
The concept behind Watchmaker is simple: kill . . . crush . . . destroy. There is no room for anything else on this album. Of course the concept might be simple, but musically I hear many influences on Watchmaker's debut album.
First, and most prominent, post-metalcore flows forth from this beast with more violence and hatred than anything ever put to disc before it. I hear Converge influences, but those influences have been twisted and beaten with the butt of an AK-47. Whatever was left of those influences was blasted to pieces with several thousand rounds from that same machine gun.
Second, and these influences are far less prominent, I hear moments of grind, death, and even black metal. Pick any song from the album and you will hear what I am talking about. Like older grind and death metal, vocals are made incomprehensible and seem to be used as another instrument more than as a means to convey an idea lyrically. Brian Livoti's vocals are so extreme and violent; I guarantee he vomits blood after a performance. As for the black metal influences, one needs to look no further than the repetition of riffs that seem to intertwine in different songs, disappear for a while, and then reemerge again. Like old-school black metal, the riffs, and for that matter the songs, seem to use the repetition like a firing squad blasting the life out of some sick, vile criminal. Only in Watchmaker's case, the criminals are the ones with the guns.
Watchmaker "Kill.Crush.Destroy." is truly the most violent release I have heard in a long time (if not ever). Song titles like "Broken by Refraction", "Salt Fertile Earth", and "Like Saturn Devouring his Children" tell a story of noisecore or metalcore, but that would be foolish to dismiss Watchmaker with such a simple classification. Music this violent and hateful should be kept away from any classification or genre for fear of contaminating others around them.
Wonderdrug Records
2002
by Nathan Pearce
The concept behind Watchmaker is simple: kill . . . crush . . . destroy. There is no room for anything else on this album. Of course the concept might be simple, but musically I hear many influences on Watchmaker's debut album.
First, and most prominent, post-metalcore flows forth from this beast with more violence and hatred than anything ever put to disc before it. I hear Converge influences, but those influences have been twisted and beaten with the butt of an AK-47. Whatever was left of those influences was blasted to pieces with several thousand rounds from that same machine gun.
Second, and these influences are far less prominent, I hear moments of grind, death, and even black metal. Pick any song from the album and you will hear what I am talking about. Like older grind and death metal, vocals are made incomprehensible and seem to be used as another instrument more than as a means to convey an idea lyrically. Brian Livoti's vocals are so extreme and violent; I guarantee he vomits blood after a performance. As for the black metal influences, one needs to look no further than the repetition of riffs that seem to intertwine in different songs, disappear for a while, and then reemerge again. Like old-school black metal, the riffs, and for that matter the songs, seem to use the repetition like a firing squad blasting the life out of some sick, vile criminal. Only in Watchmaker's case, the criminals are the ones with the guns.
Watchmaker "Kill.Crush.Destroy." is truly the most violent release I have heard in a long time (if not ever). Song titles like "Broken by Refraction", "Salt Fertile Earth", and "Like Saturn Devouring his Children" tell a story of noisecore or metalcore, but that would be foolish to dismiss Watchmaker with such a simple classification. Music this violent and hateful should be kept away from any classification or genre for fear of contaminating others around them.
