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Like many bands within the Deathcore genre, Trigger the Bloodshed has found themselves evolving away from the now considered norms of the style to branch out and explore new territory. Of course, even that new territory is where many of these once founding, now maturing acts wander into: Brutal Death Metal. Degenerate<'i> marks the band's third full-length offering, and finds the band continuing to explore their merit as a band by pushing the Technical brutality of their music, which winds up being av ery horrific and intense Death Metal release. There is simply no denying the huge shift in the material Trigger the Bloodshed has recorded over the years, and Degenerate prove to be the band's most worthwhile venture yet. For this release, the group essentially strips themselves of almost all "core" influences, most notably being minimizing breakdowns that wound up bringing the pace of their music to a crawl regardless of how well they fit overall within the song. Instead, what we have here is just intense Technical Brutal Death Metal that fans of prioneers like Cryptopsy will embrace for the intense music and intricate guitars, pounding drums, and commanding vocals. Degenerate starts off well enough with the track "A Vision Showing Nothing" that just screams along at an insanely strong pace, bringing the band's best foot forward, but the album does necessarily take shape until "De-Breed" thanks to "A Vision Showing Nothing" feeling a little too drawn out in the long run. Other then really working the track for it's length, the song is fantastic and gets you ready to jouney through the album. After that, it's just punishing track after punishing track. As mentioned, the album takes off with "De-Breed", which features some great vocal layering that intensifies the gutteral style and makes them more inhuman and commanding to the listener. This is also one of the few tracks that still hold the bands roots in place thanks to the breakdown that closes the song out and makes things slow down for a brief period of time. This song also seems to bring in a little bit of a Groove aspect to the music as well. It really isn't much to take notice if you're not paying attention, but at times there is a definitive aspect of this in the drumming, which does help to set this song apart from the rest, especially since the rest of the album is simply intense Death Metal without anything else to distinguish it from one another outside of varying music and pure unbridled anger. The rest of Degenerate just keeps coming at you about the same pace as it did before, heavy and intense but never really going too fast outside of some blast beat drumming to pick up the intensity. "A Sterile Existence", however, really shines through of the closing songs thanks to just how evil it really sounds. The vocals wind up being amped up a bit too, and not by simple layers. There are moments in the song that a higher pitched vocal style is introduced, which does happen through the album as well, but isn't quite executed as nicely as it is here. Aside that, there's also some haunting gutterals that appear in the background of the song near the end that just keep the intensity going while the song slows down it's pace a bit, but not enough to be considered treading into a breakdown like with "De-Breed". "The Soulful Dead" also features some deep gutterals and varying vocal approaches to it, but it's mostly thanks to layering three different vocal approaches over one another to create a very inhuman sound that does it's job well. There's othing really to complain about with this release. The production is fantzstic and, musically, the album is a very promising Death Metal effort. The only let down to this release winds up being the space between "Until Kingdom Come" and "Whited Sepulcher", as there is a long bit of silence between them that just feels very awkward and could easily have been cut down. There's also that breakdown that closes "De-Breed", but luckily it kind of works in favor of the song. However, that isn't the case with the closingt rack "Whited Sepulcher", which just has a random breakdown in the song that really just feels tacked on, bringing the band back to their Deathcore roots again, but not really in a good way. Sure, Degenerate may not be one of the most original albums out there, showing influence from bands like Cryptopsy, Origin, and even later Whitechapel, but it's the simple fact that this album is insane. The songs on here are simply bludgeoning and just hammer away at the listener right from the start. Tracks like "De-Breed" and "Until Kingdom Come" will have you have coming back for more punishment as if a dog to a dominatrix. If you're looking for an intense album with no cheap gimmicks outside of some technical guitar work, then Trigger the Bloodshed's Degenerate is an album you simply have to look into, as this is an album that won't disapoint, or growing boring after a few spins. |
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