Review Summary: Fast, brutal, and in-your-face, Animal is a truly great release that showcases deathcore done right.
Deathcore is a genre with a lot of negative stigma backing it. While most of it is completely warranted, a very small amount of bands have managed to sound refreshing while still being grouped in with the genre. Animosity may have started off as what would now be considered fairly overdone and boring deathcore, but they have continued to progress more and more with every release. Their sophomore album,
Empires is the first example of this. While
Shut it Down was straight metalcore with no gimmicks or flair to separate itself from the rest of the genre, Animosity had decided to exchange breakdowns for speed with Empires, and it did not disappoint. The lyrics were stronger and the music was heavier and more intense.
Animal, the outfit's latest release has followed this trend and showed an even steeper amount of progression than was shown in Empires.
Animosity lets you know right away that they aren't interested in wasting your time, Animal kicks things off with
Terrorstorm. The track starts off simply with Leo Miller snarling out the word 'Terrorstorm', which is immediately followed by an entire minute of the rest of the group churning out brutal and almost grind-eqsue instrument work before Miller joins back in and showcases his impressive vocal range, changing between deep guttural growls and high pitched screeches frequently. The remainder of the album doesn't let up for a second, a constant barrage of technically proficient instrument work by every member of the band, all being fronted by a truly talented vocalist and lyricist, gurgling, screeching, growling, and shouting out lyrics expressing the band's distaste with politics and religion in their current state.
While you would probably expect an album like Animal that sounds great on the first listen to have little to no lasting value, this is not the case. Being the heaviest and fastest release by Animosity to date, it is very obviously the least accessible. That said, it takes a few listens to grow on you if you're coming from listening to primarily either wankcore or death metal as this is a completely different beast than both genres, but the growing time is well worth it.
Simply put, Animal is what deathcore lacks, truly talented members, and a complete lack of the cookie cutter formula that every group of scenesters who think playing fast automatically makes good music mindlessly follow
