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Mycelia Online Promo Shot

Though at times it is uncertain what to make of some elements of Nova, the new album from Swiss metallers Mycelia, the ultimate outcome is a release which leaves the senses alive and thoughts through to passions empowered by the riveting and superbly crafted confrontation. A fusion of progressive and technical metal, the nine track album takes the listener on an enthralling and impressive escapade through sonically carved ventures fuelled by uncompromising melodic and djent invention.

Founded in 2010 by guitarist Mike Schmid and drummer Marc Trummer in the idyllic Swiss mountain town of Le Croix, Mycelia using inspirations from the likes of The Human Abstract, Meshuggah, and The Dillinger Escape Plan was soon creating potent songs. The line-up expanded soon after with the addition of vocalist Marc Fürer, second guitarist Patrick Küng, and bassist Roy Sonderegger. Two digital EPs and shows supporting bands such as Carnifex, Veil of Maya, Suffokate, and Maroon followed as the band built an impressive reputation in the metal scene of their homeland. Debut album Isolator arrived in 2012 to greater acclaim and reception though not long after Küng departed the band. Remaining as a quartet the band worked on writing their second album which they started recording in the latter part of the year with Clawfinger guitarist Jocke Skog at the controls. Seemingly investigating the depths and expanse between bands from The Human Abstract, The Faceless, and Meshuggah to those like Between the Buried and Me, Nova emerges as a riveting exploration which though not flawless leaves a very hungry appetite for the band behind.

The album opens with the towering Shmashmortion, the track immediately standing tall and wide before the ear with crushing Mycelia Cover Artwork kinetic rhythms, grievous throaty bass snarls, and ravaging riffs with sonic grooving twisted around their sinews. With great and varied guttural growls squalling over the whole thing as well, it is an intimidating invitation which leaps with expulsions of raptorial intensity directly on to the senses, chewing them feverishly as the guitars dance tight melodic flames over all surfaces. Leaving breath an absentee in the lungs, the song is a scintillating fury to set passions off in tandem with the absorbing corrosive assault.

The following Ectoparasite exercises the same brew of maelstrom bred rhythmic attack and sonic tantalising but in a distinctly different gait and stance. The bass and riffs prowl and provoke a menacing narrative to the venture but that eventually evolves into a mesmeric sultry weave of melodic grandeur and emotive manipulation before returning in union with the acidic beauty. Though not as instantly dramatic as the first song it worms its charms into the heart and emerges as one of the many highlights of the release.

After the brief and refreshing instrumental Dopamine, the track a rhythmic dance within a heated sway of melodic ambience which allows its sinews to also add their potent textures, Nova takes another of numerous twists with C.O.R.P. and its invention. Ridden by less successful clean vocals which admittedly took time to adjust to, the track teases with some psyched grooves and devouring rhythms veining another devious web of sonic enterprise which seduces the ear and emotions with ease, the technical flare beguiling without being flamboyant. Intriguing and descriptive in its aural narrative, the song leads thoughts into the visual arms of a sultry and dangerous landscape leaving behind a lingering satisfaction.

The Timemasheen is odd, well in its appearance on the release. A mix of dubstep and trance metal it is a decent enough piece which grips limbs to do its bidding without igniting any real fire in the belly but is utterly out of place on the otherwise impressively creative album. Its touch is soon forgotten though as firstly the excellent instrumental Event Horizon with its predacious intensity and carnivorous rhythmically provoked riffing makes its appearance followed by the three part expanse of The Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio – Prologue opens with a glorious kiss of classical keys and symphonic whispers before climatic drums and growing energy adds extra passion to each aspect. Bone gnawing riffs and flesh scorching grooves emerge to consume without completely dispersing the beauty as the piece pulls the listener into the heart of the sonic travelogue. The Golden Ratio – Interlude takes a moment to re-establish its classic lined grandeur before opening a torrid heat of rapacious malevolence to take the seduction to deeper depths, the pervading union realised to its fullest potency with The Golden Ratio – Epilogue.

It is a stunning three track conclusion declaring and investigating the rich lengths and textures of the songwriting and its immensely crafted interpretation. Nova even with its surprising and less successful moment is an album of the highest pleasure. Mycelia will be a major force in the future, whether this album is the accelerator is debatable but it gives the confidence to say it will happen at some point.

www.mycelia.ch

8.75/10

RingMaster 10/07/2013

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Like the effect of sand in a wind tunnel notched up to the maximum, the new album from Italian deathcore band Corroosion is as abrasive and lethal as their name gives hint to. It is a nasty and destructive piece of work, a sonic blistering without mercy or respect. It is also corruptively magnificent. Dirt Awareness is not the easiest of listens or probably not the most appealing for some at times but stare it right in the eyes and it is becomes one of the more rewarding albums to assault the senses this year and has the makings of an insatiable addiction.

From Turin, Corroosion emerged from the ashes of Hekatomb in 2005. Consisting of vocalist AnD, guitarists Sentenza and Lino, bassist Marco, and Dave on drums, the band made their first mark with their 2008 demo Maze Of Human Deprivation. Relentless gigging followed as well as the six track EP Two Steps Before The Vein, the band all the time creating attention grabbing strokes with their storm of extreme metal leading them to sharing stages with bands such as The Acacia Strain, Deicide, Neaera, Annotations of an Autopsy, Knights of the Abyss, and Slowmotion Apocalypse. Mid 2009 and the band signed with Rising Records and set to work on their debut album Punish The Mind with producer Alan Douches (Killswitch Engage, Emmure, Carnifex, The Acacia Strain, Cannibal Corpse),which was released the following year. 2011 saw the band destroy stages alongside the likes of The Ghost Inside, Bleed From Within, Suffokate, Trigger The Bloodshed, For The Fallen Dreams, before working on their second album. Produced by Fredrik Nordstrom (At The Gates, Job For a Cowboy, Bring Me The Horizon, Dimmu Borgir, In Flames) and released again on Rising on July 23^rd, the album is a titanic treat of invention, imagination and outright violence.

The album creeps up on the ear with the opening to Awareness as echoes of war emerge from the sinister whispers to be replaced by the intrusive windings of guitar grooves and flesh grating vocals. At full stretch the track badgers the senses with crisp punchy rhythms and bruising riffs through an attack which seems tempered, as if the band is simply teasing and taunting its victims. The intensity though is oppressive throughout and heightened in the climaxing storm of scowled group vocals, rigid beats, and manipulative guitars, and the song itself the intimidating beginning and appetizer for the annihilation ahead.

The crushing and quite brilliant track The Loser Slave flies for the jugular within seconds of its appearance, air flaying riffs and grinding grooves to open up the deepest sores laying siege upon the senses. The song evolves into a raging stomp of sounds and bestial borne vocals with a ravenous hunger not to be denied. It is pure malevolence brought with the surest ferocity but dive beyond the surface and there is a continual evolution of invention and sound going on which makes every rampage a new offering. It is this which has the band standing out over other similar bands and makes Dirt Awareness far more than a great album.

More impressive brutality comes in the form of the greedily consuming and relentlessly raging Crimes Of Fathers Times with its dehabilitating diversity of riffs and rhythms skewered with a cruelly niggling groove and the stunning Polarity, both further scarring on the ear and scrambling of synapses with sharp twisting manipulations. The second of the two is a maelstrom of hellacious energy and sounds which use their notes like kinder to spark an inferno of fury and creative excellence to bring one to their knees.

The release is simply one continual high quality and imaginative brute with just the intensity and the caustic covering uniformal. The songs twist and turn within their skins, tempo disruptions, unexpected breakdowns, and perfect unpredictability raging in the eye of every storm such as in further triumphs like Collective Humiliation, Falena, and Repulsion, though every track deserves a mention such the depth of excellence.

The suspicion is Corroosion is still an unknown most have yet to discover but with Dirt Awareness the days of that secret is numbered with the band surely on the verge of deserved major attention.

https://www.facebook.com/corroosion

RingMaster 11/07/2012