Hello Metalheads! This John with a something a little different. I want to start highlighting some of my favorite albums that came out earlier this year. This one is “The Center That Cannit Hold” by Replacire. This caught me totally off guard when I first heard it. I didn’t know a single thing about this band and gave this a serious listen right off the bat.
Replacire has this sound to them is just amazing. They somehow manage to be progressive, technical, melodic and brutal all in one song at times. This band really manages to sneak tricky meters and accents like nothing. They make it sound so impressive to say the absolute least.
The title track of this album is very interesting because it starts off with an almost hip hop drum beat. This brings in some guitar mimicking the beat, then with some shredding lead guitar turns into a really heavy melodic guitar riff. The intro beat does return with some gnarly mid vocals over top. The fact that they can take that kind of drum beat, keep the mimicking guitar for some of the track, add some shred and make a death metal track is damn impressive.
“A Fine Manipulation” starts off very ominously with some high pitched guitar then quickly turns into a heavy and groovy section. They quickly transition into a tremolo picked passage that the turns back into the heavy groovy guitar. The part about this track is the guitar solo that morphs into a “chorus” of sorts. It’s one of the few sections that features singing in it and it’s one of the few sections that almost had a mellow or calm feel to it. The second time the chorus comes up it almost feels like they are building up to a breakdown but try to fool the listener by sticking a chorus in their instead. But don’t worry, we get a nice angular breakdown at the end of the track with the same build up!
The final track in the album is “Uncontrolled and Unfulfilled l” and it’s a great closer. It starts with some singing, arpeggiated guitar and a nice groove. This has a brief transition then starts with a nice chugging guitar riff, that gets a little more technical but still with an underlying groove. The part that really drew me to this track as one of my favorites is the passage around 2:20 or so, they play an almost Haken esque part with a ton of space in it. There is some singing again that builds into some low guttural vocals that has the same structure but adds some density and heaviness. The guitar solo at the end of this passage has a jazz feel to it, with some double bass drum underneath to remind you that this is death metal at the end of the day. The end of the solo has some fast tremolo to signify the end, then the heaviness comes back with the vocals.
“The Center That Cannot Hold” feel as if it’s been out since February with how highly I regard it and how many times I’ve listened to it. The way this band manages to be progressive and technical at the same time really gripped me from the first listen. As I have stated before I love a good dense album and this is certainly one to add to the list. Finding a gem like this from a random suggestion is such a cool thing. I can say that this will be in or very close to my top ten at the end of the year. I’d give this a solid rating if 8.5 out of 10.
https://www.season-of-mist.com/bands/replacire/
Categories: Album Review, Death Metal, Prog Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, Uncategorized