Forgotten Ariel's Chants
This is the
best album in the death/grind genre that Czech Republic can offer till then. It
consists of ten tracks of musical madness with some experimental touch of
unexpected using of samples and programming. Although the entirety shocks since
the first seconds quite bashfully, the final mark is almost maximal. My first
meeting with them was completely normal, seeing Contrastic on the stage many
years ago. Then they made a splash: typical guys, non-metal wears, cut off hair.
But I was totally surprised when they started to unleash their sounds. That was
really amazing as they crushed all the competition (Behemoth, Dark Funeral and
so on…). And that is when I became their supporter…
Their debut
album has a really good production. The sound is vivid and aggressive, each
instrument is audible and to put it briefly, I’m surprised a bit. But the most
important thing: these Czechs can play. In addition, they are very talented
beasts and have really individual approach to musical content which includes
many weird, astounding moments. The
music flows very freely and naturally, without hindrance, it seems that
musicians have a big fun while composing and performing the sounds. Even if the
band is a representative of more brutal metal music, still I can feel a
commercial (?!) touch over here. I’m not writing about putting Contrastic into
MTV shitty web, as they have nothing to do with soulless sweet melodies. Just
let’s take “Sex with Four Walls” opened by funky guitar theme which turns into
a portion of straightforward catchy group of riffs. Melodic death metal? Not
quite, because it’s served in more brutal and thoroughgoing way than Gothenburg
style for instance. And what is interesting, Polu, the guitarist, played very
memorable solo lead here. Anyway, all the guitar leads on the album are worth
the trouble, even if they are hard to digest for some fans of the death/grind
genre due to startling catchiness. Moreover, one lead in the last track
“About…” I can call as beautiful… That’s
really crazy!
The band
offers the tracks with totally different time spread, from half-minute “I Feel
Dislike” to almost nine minutes of “About…”. The musical layer is dominated by
ruthless tempo, the guitar riffs wall and devastating rhythm section
effectively destroy everything on its way. Contrastic doesn’t offer any
complicated structures, yet they smartly include a rhythm changes that don’t
disturb the overall impression. There is a need to mention about samples and
programming too. Even if I’m not a worshipper of keyboards and such stuff in
metal music, it is served in a good way here. Maybe only the first track with
almost industrial touch isn’t as good as other efforts, but listen to track number
eight (with the longest title), laden with such strange samples/noises and
fantastic guitar work. Also “Chopin’s Ulcerous Colic” is worthy of mention due
to piano-like sounds among the guitar hurricane and blast beats. Ha, Frederick
is turning in his grave! Not only because of musical performance. Putti
vo-kills ravage beyond the shadow of a doubt! This guy is incredible, as he
proposes many kinds of ‘singing’, from whispers, groans to normal, clean vocal
forms and the most deep guttural voices that I have ever heard. All these Putti
offerings make the album better and better. A great supplement to the music
indeed.
To cut it
short: this album is a really superb piece of devastating form of art. With a
sense of humor (but with no stupidity) and fine front cover (my daughter loves
it, cause it shows the famous hero from Walt Disney world!). The music is
arranged in a perfect way, it is very coherent, played on the loose, however
still it’s 100% metal release. At that time the album was so much different
from the rest of the scene, as they are open minded for various musical
directions still kept in metal frame. This individuality and unquestionable
talent pumped a new blood into death/grind circle. The musicians showed a noticeable
progress in composing, though their previous split with Ingrowing is also
pretty memorable exhalement. They released another split with other Czech
hordes through Relapse Records, but Contrastic has died eftsoon. Fortunately
2012 year brought some great news, because the musicians decided to attack the
scene once again. And they plan to record new songs this year. I hope it will
be worthy of such long waiting. They deserve all praises. Thus don’t wait up
for another ‘star’ from a famous label and check Contrastic out, the music with
a real class.
98/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on September, 2013)
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