I decided to check out the promo from Texas’s I Am Destruction, as it was a Unique Leader release, and that’s usually a fire hit. Also, this band and features guitarist Paul Dundas, who used to play is fellow Texans  I Am, who I recently discovered and really liked, hoping for a similar styled and quality album of stomping, grooving Texan metal. However after just a few listens,  it’s clear, I Am is the superior act.

Overall the style is similar, generally mid paced chugging deathcore/downtempo, though this iteration is a little more straight up deathcore, with more blasts and dual vocals, as opposed to I Am‘s more pure Southern, grooving take. But, either way, this is some generic as heck, by the numbers modern deathcore, that even for deathcore in 2020 is pretty forgettable.

I don’t know if I Am Destruction was trying to stick it to State mates I Am, (both were started around the same time, and both play the same sort of of style), by just adding ‘Destruction’ to the name, but from the rather generic production of newcomer Russell Hollar, to the dual growls and screams of guitarist/founder Stephen Mashburn, to the standard breakdowns and blasts, there’s nothing here that really stands out, and it comes across like a 2008 myspace deathore band, and I like deathcore.

Granted, for the genre, it checks all the boxes, and isn’t really a bad album per say, so if you are really needing something new to listen to in your deathcore playlist, this fits the bill. The likes of “Ruinous Phantasm”, “Divine Infestation” and lumbering “Consequent Forfeiture” ( a favorite track, if I had to pick one) are OK deathcore paradigm filling songs. But 2020 has seen solid releases from Suicide Silence and Lorna Shore and 2019 had some really strong efforts (Whitechapel, Thy Art is Murder, Shrine of Malice, etc), I’d go listen to them rather than this painfully generic effort. Heck, go put on I Am‘s killer Hard 2 Kill from 2018, and see what these guys are trying, and failing to recreate.

[Visit the band's website]

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