mambo cosmo:
This is probably the most underrated TDEP album. While definitely "Miss Machine" and "Calculating Infinity" are better in the heavy department of sound, this is far superior in the experimentation department.
The album can be divided in 3 parts, divided by Black Bubblegum and Milk Lizard.
The first two tracks constitute the first part, and are pretty much a TDEP standard, with extremely difficult drum patterns and amazing guitar and bass works, but with already a different feeling from the previous records, a more "melodic" feeling I'd say. But then "Black Bubblegum" hits, and we discover an even more melodic part of the band. It's always good when bands go out of their comfort zone and try new things, especially when said things work, like in this case. They already did something similar in their previous album with "Unretrofied", but this time is less accessible and more experimental, inspired by bands like Faith No More and maybe Nine Inch Nails too. Following this track there's probably the interesting part of the album, with 3 experimental tracks (my favourite of which being "Sick on Sunday" because of the kind of sounds that they use to create a strange, rather uncomfortable atmosphere) and 2 "standard" TDEP tracks (Nong Eye Gong and 82588), but both of them have some elements that distincts them from the others grindy mathcore tracks, and I think they work very well in the overall context of the record, like the more melodic-jazzy part in 82588 that works as a kind of a break from the chaos, something they always did in their discography. After this central part we get "Milk Lizard", which I think is the most accessible track in the entire TDEP discography, maybe paired with the already mentioned "Unretrofied". The track it's still in the TDEP style, with the shouted vocals and syncopated time signatures in some part of the song, but overall is more groovy and with a linear song structure, slightly resembling some of the early 2000s post hardcore bands. The production can sound a little bit messy, but I think it isn't unbearable. "Party Smasher" is next, and it's a really nice classic TDEP track, obviously following the style of the other ones in this record, so we got more melodic riffing and less schizophrenic drumming. Then the third part in which I divided this album starts, opening up with "Dead as History", which has a 2 minutes long electronic-ambient intro before starting off with clean vocals from Greg and the awesome riffing from Ben. The track is really enjoyable and the electronic touches similar to those in the second part of the album are a nice addition to the always present syncopated guitars. The track slowly fades out with a piano and the clean falsetto vocals from Greg before brutally transitioning into "Horse Hunter", which starts off like with a super aggressive riff before having a jazz break. The interesting part in this song it's the last part, which partially reminds me of bands like Mastodon, something that I never thought to say about a TDEP song. For the ending track we have "Mouth of Ghosts", which starts off like "Dead as History", this time we also have the amazing falsetto voice from Greg, along with the piano and bass parts which give the track an awesome melancholic vibe. The track is always building up before the final guitar explosion that goes with the semi-clean vocals, to finally end with the shouted vocals and a creepy fade out.
Definetely the best performances in this record are from Greg and Ben.
The first one pushed itself to try more clean and falsetto vocals, something he didn't do as much in "Miss Machine". These types of vocals will define Greg in the following records too, and they work perfectly.
And I think Ben songwriting and technical style are always on point, in every single TDEP record, with the characteristic syncopated and odd time signatures riffs.
In the end, I think this record isn't as hard hitting as the previous ones, but still deserves a reserved place not only in the TDEP discography, but in the entire mathcore/math-rock history.
