This is Part 7 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.
DECAPITATED
Carnival Is Forever wowed a lot of the folks whose year-end lists we’ve published at NCS. The Demonstealer (Demonic Resurrection) wrote: “The album is brilliant, the guitar playing is phenomenal, and so is the drumming. For me this album sets the benchmark for audio production, it is brutal as fuck but yet so organic.” Exo (Noctem) called it “the result of a brutal procreation between old Decapitated and Meshuggah.” Tamás Kátai (Thy Catafalque) ranked it No. 6 on his list, finding it much better than the band’s older work.
Our own Andy Synn named it one of the year’s Great Albums and rated it No. 5 on his Critical Top 10, writing that it “stands as one of the finest and most intriguing experiences I have had with modern death metal in a long time.” The album also made TheMadIsraeli’s Top 15 for the year and he summed it up this way in his NCS review: “This kicks ass. This destroys universes. This is the purest, blackest, weightiest form of sonic nihilism laid to audio I’ve heard all year.”
The album is indeed deserving of all the praise it’s received here and elsewhere. It’s technical, progressive, brutal, and heavy-grooved all at once. It includes two songs that I put on my “master list” of possibilities for this MOST INFECTIOUS series — “United” and “404”.
After much going back and forth between the two, I picked “404”. Listening to the song is a truly head-spinning experience — and a headbanging one, too.
“404”
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/05-Decapitated-Carnival-Is-Forever-05-404.mp3|titles=Decapitated – 404]Now for the second of today’s songs. For reasons that will become obvious, I thought it made sense to put these two songs together in today’s post.
ORIGIN
In the ranks of technically proficient death metal musicians, you’ll have trouble finding any better than guitarist Paul Ryan and drummer John Longstreth (and bassist Mike Flores is no slouch either). With Origin’s 2011 release, Entity, they delivered a consistently jaw-dropping performance from end to end. The music is ferocious — a tightly controlled rampage that pulls no punches. The songs are also interesting to follow as the musicians bob, weave, and jump across dimensions with seeming ease.
Phro wrote a review of Entity for us, and then later named it to his Best of 2011 list, with this explanation: “I already wrote a review of this album. But I feel like I didn’t quite do it the justice it deserved. This album is like dreaming you’re sleepwalking in a haunted funhouse only to wake up and realize that you really were sleepwalking in a haunted dream house. Oh, and the haunted dream house is haunted by really angry nanorobots whose only desire is the consumption of your flesh.”
Swarming nanobots is a good image for what Origin do on Entity. And although the album isn’t as groove-injected as Carnival Is Forever, it still manages to be infectious notwithstanding the technical blizzard it sends your way on the back of a gale-force wind. This song in particular I found to be infectious as hell, as well as adrenaline-charged and intricate. It’s the latest addition to this list:
“Evolution of Extinction”
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/11-Origin-Evolution-Of-Extinction.mp3|titles=Origin – Evolution Of Extinction]8 Responses to “OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 7”
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“404” by Decapitated – totally called it (in one’s mind) after reading DemiGodRaven’s list.
And seeing how the Decapitated song is here, the song by Origin is no surprise.
Speaking of Meshuggah and Tech Death, one should now go listen to whatever TheMadIsraeli had recommended as “good” Progressive Groove Metal. This new Decapitated album fits in quite well with those (to one’s own ears at least).
DGR’s award for “404” in his list helped me finish off my internal tug-of-war between that song and “United”.
“United” was my choice. Clearly my personality has yet to gain complete dominance.
I still don’t actually see the Meshuggah influence on the new Decapitated – it strikes me as far more of an off-kilter Pantera-gone-Death-Metal piece of work.
I could be convinced that “United” is the better song, but I thought “404” was slightly more infectious. Like the album as a whole, both are great.
I will vouch highly for the meshuggah influence on 404 in specific. That whole main riff of the song that just drives away at you sounds like something that would’ve come off of Chaosphere. The whole song? No. But that one riff and that way it just pounds out sticks in your head.
The whole album is as I said, it has HEAVY vibes of both Meshuggah and Nevermore. I would vouch that 404 actually has more in common with later Nevermore riff wise than Meshuggah myself.
Couldn’t get into the Decapitated. I liked their previous albums, but wasn’t a rabid fanboy. This one seemed too Messuh influenced. I’m not a Messuh fan either, so anything that sounds remotely close to that get’s a major thumbs down with me 😛
The new Decap still induces murderous rage everytime I listen to it.