The second album from the reformed Pillory, (who released one album, No Lifeguard at the Gene Pool back in 2005 then broke up in 2008) isn’t quite what you’d expect from Unique Leader.  And while it continues the label’s excellent run of simply killer 2014 releases, it does it from a slightly different angle. Rather the pure , brutal death metal, Pillory’s sound is much more rooted in mathcore or tech metal of yore, with The Dillinger Escape Plan as a backbone albeit with some inherent Unique Leader brutality mixed in.

And that should come as no surprise as founding member and drummer (though not on this album) Darren Cesca, wrote recorded and produced the album, has served in the likes of Arsis and Burn In Silence as well as his other death metal projects. Then, current drummer Joe Cole has drummed in Psyopus and See You Next Tuesday,  laying down the percussive framework for the band’s more scattershot, choppy and tangibly mathcore undercurrent. That along with more hardcore shouts rather than death metal growls and grunts (though a few show up here and there) make for an album that Unique leader fans, expecting more Beneath, Soreption or Near Death Condition, a little confused but still impressed.

Even with a sound more in common with lat 90s mid 00s math core like Gaza, Into the Moat, Ion Dissonance, Animosity and a lot of the Black Market Activities roster, Pillory’s second effort is an exceptional extreme metal release, even if not truly death metal. The skill level is as you’d expect with a crazy amount of stop start riffage, shattering discordance and sudden injections of acoustics of experimentation, by way of some programming and surprisingly good instrumental orchestration (“Distorted Axiom”, Phantasmagorical Beasts”, last half of closer “Bipedal Prosecution”).

Like the cover and album concept, the album fires and misfires like neurons and synapses, sparking, exploding and shimmering almost beyond human conception. Don’t come here looking for beefy grooves or thunderous marches. The album staggers, sprints and stumbles across  shards of glass with nary a single bar or two repeating. So it goes with out saying, those on the side of the fence looking for memorability should stay the fuck out. Those audiophiles who want to hear instruments pushed to their limit and a cacophony of squawking, squealing but blissfully chaotic noise- come right on in.

It starts with the opener “And the Defeated Emerge”  and ends with the 11 minute closer “Bipedal Prosecution”, but look no further than the 7 and a half minute title track for a kaleidoscope of noise, chaos, shrill blasts and even a  jangly acoustic bridge for a encapsulation of the band’s sound. Some melodies arise on the almost blackened blast during “Nihilarian” but its a rare moment of clarity amid a sonic shitstorm of complex chaos that adds a little something extra to Unique Leader’s killer 2014 opuses.

[Visit the band's website]

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