ABNORMALITY is the beast hiding in the corner of your room at midnight. The beast that slowly shuffles and slithers towards your bed. The beast that climbs in next to you and exhales putrid air upon your neck. The beast that silently laughs as it prepares to disembowel you.
ABNORMALITY is the beast that will rip your fucking eardrums out with its aural devastation. Mallika Sundaramurthy (vocals), Jeremy Henry (guitars), Sam Kirsch (guitars), Josh Staples (bass) and Jay Blaisdell (drums) are a band worth paying attention to. Three years after the scorching "Mechanisms Of Omniscience", the band have returned with technical brutality in third full-length "Sociopathis Contructs", a blitzkrieg of crunching, vertigo-fueled animosity.
'Monarch Alpha' immediately starts throwing punches as Mallika screeches and rasps a miasma of bloodcurdling terrors. The guitars chortle and obliterate as the drums thump and bash. 'Penance' is a tech-death masterpiece. In a growing genre of tech riffs that deal more with showing off than just crushing us, ABNORMALITY waste no time with self-indulgence and just give us what we fucking crave. 'Kakistocracy' reminds me a little of the essence of HOUR OF PENANCE, which is a good thing whether inspired by them or not. The production is top notch.
'Transmogrification Of The Echoborgs' swaggers at a mid-pace at first before becoming a whirlwind of sonic fury. If there's one thing there's an abundance of, it's the psychotic, gasping-for-air, face-ripping, regurgitating mass of energy that explodes from the band's songwriting which doesn't allow time to recuperate from one track to the next. Your stress level and anxiety continue to rise on 'A Catastrophic And Catalyzing Event' until ambient 'Aeturnum' segues into 'Dying Breed', a blistering array of guitars, staggering drumming and sweltering vocals. 'A Seething Perversion' is another track spotlighting a little technical skills before erupting into a volcano of molten destruction.
Finally, 'Curb Stomp', with its rapid-fire drumming signals the way out of the album. I'm almost exhausted from the brutal death metal that's pulverized my ass for the past half hour.
Don't for one minute doubt Mallika's ability to direct her female fury at your soul. Backed by a band that knows how to kick you in the balls till you puke bloody bile, Mallika and the boys named ABNORMALITY should set a solid stamp in the death metal world for years to come.
-David Simonton
Photos by Emily Harris