Based on the 18-minute burst of a debut ‘full length’ that was Parasite , I didn’t exactly have high expectations for the sophomore album from this Michigan deathcore act. However, once I saw the cover, titles, new producers Dan Kenny and John Cinotta (Suffocation) and the mastering credits of Scott Hull (Pig Destroyer, Agoraphobic Nosebleed), I knew this might be a different beast.

Sure, at its heart Intervals is your standard modern deathcore record with a an expected array of discordant, chaotic riffs screams, growls, breakdowns and blasts, but there’s something different about Intervals. Aside from the new, dirtier, earthier sound and new vocalist Chris Fox, (who has one of the more impressive deeper register growls in the genre) gone are the ‘jokey’ song titles and sense of quirkiness that littered the debut. Intervals is more visceral, more raw, deadly serious and downright nasty at times.

Sure, most of the 17 tracks are the short, staggering, squealing lurches and spurts (“The Life In Death”, “Eternity?”, “She Once Said I Was a Romantic”, “Nightmares”, “In the Beginning”, “Goodnight (Our Last Dance)”, “One of These Days”, “11/27/07” but they are at least somewhat cohesive, and with the new sound retain a little more character and malevolence than their triggered, clicky peers. However, the handful of tracks that slow down to a truly impressive, sludgy lope are what makes Intervals standout a little from the deathcore pack; “In the End”, “Daydreams”, “Forever on Deaf Ears”, truly steamrolling “Dedication to a New Era” and closer “January and On”, show a band injecting deathcore with a grit an grime and sense of dread that is a refreshing change from either the teen driven, sugar coated over produced Hot Topic-core (The Number 12 Looks Like You, The Devil Wears Prada, Bring Me The Horizon, A Hero A Fake, etc) or ever so forced death metal antics (Job For a Cowboy, Annotations of an Autopsy, Carnifex, Suicide Silence). Though I could have done without the couple of needless 11 second ‘songs’, “Alpha” and “Omega”.

Intervals is surprisingly primal, pure and honest-all elements missing from the genre in the last few years and the result is a beastly, direct deathcore album riddled with character, sores and scabs.

[Visit the band's website]

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