Review Summary: A shroud of sick tech death for the elite masses.
Brutality, this is the word that best describes Decrepit Birth. Their style brings guttural vocals and fast paced fretwork together over pulse pounding blastbeats and sickening rhythms. While this release isn't as technical as "Diminishing Between Worlds" it still holds its own. It also manages to throwdown some serious brutality.
Decrepit Birth hadn't gotten much love from technical death metal fans until their latest release which officially got them their own spot in the genre as one of the top dogs. This release is by no means one of the genre's essential albums, but it is one that fans of tech death should hear. The vocalist belches out his deep gutturals the whole record, no real variation to be found, except the occosional scream/puking noise. Honestly if you really look around in tech death none of the bands that have gotten noticed have extremely exciting vocalists (Cough)Necrophagist(Cough).
When listening to "...And Time Begins" there is always some kind of chugging or heavy punishing rhythm to be found. The sound quality on this record leaves much to be desired, the guitar is tracked fairly low along with the vocals. This allows the bass to be heard at times its not often that anything interesting is done by the bassist though. Just backing the guitarist for the most part though every once in awhile he does get a little solo (Only once I believe).
The guitar tone on the record is decent, its really just a heavily distorted, beefy sounding setup but it serves its purpose. The best showing of the guitarists writing capibility is on the instrumental "Of Genocide" the guitarist show they can melt faces the whole record, but on this particular song it is slowed down and extremely catchy, it probably has some of the best riffs featured on this album. There are no epic moments in this album like there were in "Diminishing Between Worlds" this may be a plus to someone who is into brutal death or just want to "slam out to sick pitriffs bro".
The drumming is the main thing that makes this a solid release. The drummer sticks to blastbeats for the most part, but every now and then you get the privelidge to hear him go ape*** on his kit, and believe me when I say this is a privelidge. Decrepit Birth have been blessed with some very talented musicians and it is very clearly displayed on this album, its noticable that they hadn't completely found their music identity when they recorded this, they were really just beggining to come into their own with their latest record.
Musically this album is tame compared to "Diminishing Between Worlds" in terms of brutality though this is the way to go. If you are strictly a tech death fan go for the latest if you want crushing brutality that will crush you this is the way to go, either way they are both good. When you listen to their two full lengths it is clear that Decrepit Birth is consistent and not just a one trick pony. Overall I give this a 3.5 out of 5 this has quite a bit replay value and stays fun and entertaining throughout. Don't put this at the top of your to get list, but it deserves to be somewhere on it.
