Anomalies

Cephalic Carnage – Anomalies (Relapse)
Mostly a grindcore band but these guys mix it up enough (including joking around) that it’s somewhat schizophrenic. Brutal, heavy, fast, always changing grindcore with some doom, some metalcore (??) and straight hard rock thrown in for fun. Very diverse vocals as usual with many guest vocals. Screams, barks, growls, and even signing. They get help from Travis (Cattle Decapitation), Corporate Death (Macabre), and Barney (Napalm Death). This is their 4th album.
**1. Travis from Cattle Decapitation sings. The track starts out with some scary sample and then rips into straight forwards grind. About halfway through the track they double the speed and there are a couple great screams. Ends with quiet electronics.
**2. Opens with techie arpeggios then finds a straight forward groove. Amazing drumming with a combination of blasts and syncopation.
3. Heavy mid paced groove with some discordant guitar. The breakdown is somewhat simple and the vocals are a bit death metal. There is nothing really wrong with this track, it just didn’t grab me. Is that the guy from Dying Fetus singing?
**4. Some melodic guitar sounds that are a bit more death metal. Is that Barney from Napalm Death singing the chorus? There is a sample thrown in.
5. FCC Doom/stoner groove with vocals you can understand. Yea, not grindcore at all.
6. This track goes through a bunch of changes and sounds, some sort of cheap metalcore. I’m not that into the grind-n-roll sound.
7. Single notes up and down the guitar and mid paced drumming. A strange combination of some Swedish guitar sounds and metalcore. They throw in some lame metalcore vocals. Ugh.
8. Clean simple guitar to begin. Man this track sucks.
**9. Slow groove stoner rock in frantic grind. They change speeds a ton. Post apocalypse sucks. Extended blues-y solo.
**10. Super slow with bursts of quick grindcore. Ah, a metal heads craving for weed. Funny.
11. Straight ahead grindcore that changes speeds a lot and has some slow parts.
12. Long, slow, and reminds me a bit of Isis and Pelican.
Good stuff. -mph