What’s this you say? a female fronted tech death metal/ djenty/modern death metal supergroup featuring former members of Animosity ( a must have from the early 00s deathcore scene), Animals as Leaders (Navene Koperweis) and The Faceless (Evan Brewer)? Well, color me interested….

While certainly The Faceless and Animosity influences ( as well as many modern bands like Textures, Veil of Maya, Periphery etc) are clearest in this album’s polyrhythmic  stuttering, staggering  (and lengthy) 8  songs, there is a clear level of more pure, futuristic tech death also abound and a more adventurous sense of experimentation than the members previous bands.  It’s still all very modern, clinical and sterile,  but that fits well within the cyber/sci fi vibe rendered with some synths, beeps and whirs here and there.

Growler Chaney Crabb is impressive as a growler and screamer, In fact i had no Idea it was a female until I started researching the band for the review. Also,   there are no Iwrestledabearonce-y clean vocals to bring anything into more sugary Sumerian Records, commerical pastures. There are however some nicely done ‘clean’ moments musically such as the half way point of the 8 minute “An Ever Expanding Human” or the little bass bridge  in “New Light” or the title track. But mostly tracks like opener “Perpetual Misconceptions” or the title track again, add little sci fi injections or spacey solos amid  pretty bludgeoning salvos of twisty, bass slappy, breakdowny, but intelligently crafted, otherworldy, tech metal.

Some lurching pacing arrives to start “Bad Chemicals”,  and “Mind Alone” is a pure bruiser until weird little ‘skipping record, mangled tape’ ambient tangent to close. The aptly named “Neural Damage” closes the album with more emphasis on oddball synths.

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