Things have been relatively quiet in the Willowtip camp in 2007. Though we’ve had the likes of Odious Mortem and Electro Quarterstaff, the label hasn’t quite reached their usual level of brilliance so far this year, and while the recent Malignancy release and the upcoming licensed Neurotic releases look to up the ante, Italy’s Illogicist and their second album don’t match up with Willowtip’s prior tech death metal releases.

To be frank, when you’ve got bands like Gorod, Odious Mortem, Capharnaum, Dim Mak, Alarum and The Dying Light (as well as Neurotic’s stable of tech/brutal death metal) on your roster, Illogicist seem a bit second rate. Sure they ply a commendable, skillful take of the latter era Death/Pestilence and Cynic styled complexity, but lacking the force and technical savagery of other tech death bands like Anata, Spawn of Possession and such, the band end up coming across more like a more proggy, tech thrash band like say, Watchtower.

However, if you are into noodly, raspy, twiddly death/thrash metal with an emphasis on spindly, spiraling notes rather than riffs and memorable structures, The Insight Eye will satisfy. It delivers ample measures of choppy, finger cramping as well as some Schuldiner styled solos and throbbing bass work. Of course it’s all superbly executed by the players, especially drummer Marco Minnemann. Vocalist Luca Minieri has the expected inoffensive mid range growl that plays second fiddle to the music. Tracks like “The Absolute or Nothing”, the harder charging “Core” and “Secrets of Human Hate” blur by in a restrained vortex of complexity and skill, but as with many tech death outfits, the impressions wane after the disc stops spinning.

Still, if you have a hankering for some more amicable technical death metal, Illogicist will satiate your needs, but don’t expect to be salivating with glee as you would most Willowtip releases.

[Visit the band's website]

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