Originally from my hometown in New York, Artificial Brain return with their follow-up to their monstrous debut, Labyrinth Constellation, from 2014.  I actually saw them live, when they toured with Pyrrhon and Gigan.  What a tour package, and Artificial Brain’s singer, Will gave me a nice shout-out and is a very cool dude.  Artificial Brain play a brand of death metal, which is non-linear in nature.  Take 1 part Gorguts Obscura and mix in 1 part Ulcerate, sprinkle in some Gigan and Demilich and enough originality to blow the pants off your neighbors and you have Artificial Brain, who’s band name goes perfect with their brutal style of music.  I loved their debut so much, as well as owning several of their shirts, I was thinking to myself can they top their debut??  Well did they…read on you poor bastard to find out.

Starting out the starting gates with the shortest track of this 10 song 48 minute album, “Floating in Delirium” gets going with some monstrous odd guitar riffing with Will’s gurgling coming from the depths of hell to reach up to the cosmos with some stunning fast bass guitar work, courtesy of Mr. Smith.  With the off-kilter time changes the one thing Artificial Brain does is not make it easy for the listener to absorb their music instantaneously.  For me, I have come to appreciate this style of death metal for some time and I find Artificial Brain to be a creative and original band.  Anyway, back to the tune.  Some melodic guitar work and parts come in and then the song fades out before you’re walloped over head, quicker than Tami Two Times can say: “I gotta go outside to get the papers, get the papers”, with “Synthesized Instinct”. Keith just blasts like there is no tomorrow and some polyrhythm’s flow close to the 2 minute part with some blasting, melody, Wills’ dynamic growls and belches and this gets relentless and never lets go of the listener.  Pretty chaotic one minute, then atmospheric then back to the brutality. Certainly keeps you on your toes and keeps your brain awake.

Just like their debut album Labyrinth Constellation title track “Infared Horizon” is one of my favorite songs on this release.  Beginning with some weird beat with melodic guitar, gutturals and slow entrance into the chaos right when the Holy Shit part at the 55 second mark.  Will comes right in with a terrific and strange guttural growl, before the drum roll and boom, right into the blast.  Check out the fast bass guitar parts at the 2.10 minute mark, then right into the blast and this fast rhythm section is ferocious and mind-bending.  I swear this sounds other worldly and with all the various vocal tones from Will and the rest of the band, it’s quite a spectacular song.  “Ash Eclipse” rounds things out, by blasting immediately and this is brutal and interesting, with some spacey guitar moments.

Infared Horizon _{has a decent production, but is not as good as Labyrinth Constellation.  Infared Horizon has some raw sections to it and I feel if they can get the guitar sound a little meatier, it will assist in their overall soundscape.  The digipak packaging is nicely done with a similar layout and font as their debut, which I appreciate, since it works.  The overall color of the grey and red, on each page, makes it difficult to make out some of the lyrics.  Artificial Brain’s Infared Horizon is original, has fantastic song titles once again, brutal and an absolute beast of an album.  I’ll put this sucker on par with their debut and definitely one of the highlights for 2017.  Buy or Die!!!}

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