If there is one thing I enjoy about cyber death metal such as The Amenta, Scarve, Total Devastation, Sybreed, Kryoburn, Hypnosis , The Project Hate and Finland’s Scorngrain is the guitar tone; that thick, mechanical, filling shaking guitar tone and as with their impressive debut, the fittingly titled Cyberwarmachine, Scorngrain once again deliver a solid slab of cybernetic death/black metal, glossed with a HUGE guitar tone, clinical drumming, and lot of programming. However, as with most cyber death metal, the cyber gimmick often covers up only average songwriting.

Starting with the urgent gait of “The Code”, 0.05% delivers 9 throbbing tracks of highly mechanical death/black metal, with the emphasis on thick riffs and lots of whirring, beeping and buzzing programming and a little bit of catchy choruses thrown in. At times, (i.e. the chorus of “The Code”, “Teaspoonful”) it’s as if The Kovenant’s Animatronic got upgraded to some dirty rusty behemoth biomechanical war machine rising from the fishnet shirts, clean vocals, polished chrome and sparkle.

There’s the expected mix of faster, piston driven tracks like “Toadstool Journey”, “Mural”, “Off With Their Heads” and the devastating closer “Teaspoonful” as well as the slower pounding robotic saunter of tracks like “Übermensch” and “Shot Down”, and all are laced with lots of industrial samples and programming. And as you can tell, the lyrics aren’t your usual technofear, machines are taking over the world clichés.

A solid cyber metal release, that shows Finland is more than just trolls and depression.

[Visit the band's website]

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