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Released on July 31, 2015 via Depraved Records
Initially conceived as a studio project and releasing their debut in 2012 debut When the Mind departs the Flesh, Meta-stasis have grown, mutated and strengthened their industrialised extreme tech-death formula, gathering praise from members of Deicide and Slayer along the way, and are now ready to release their sophomore platter, The Paradox of Metanoia onto an unsuspecting public.
It’s a belter of an album as well. 62 minutes of vicious noise split over 12 tracks, taking in a very heavy early Slipknot influence, especially in the nu-metal style riffing, additional percussion and use of a DJ, adding large dollops of Strapping Young Lad and Decapitated to up the brutality and technicality quotients, and the occasional nod to djent and tech scenes in some of the solo-ing and sound. The combination of the above sounds remarkably fresh and modern, especially factoring the easy-to-mock concept of revitalising some of the tropes of the nu-metal scene, but the combination of the genres really evokes the days when nu-metal felt edgy and almost dangerous – the way Slipknot felt before they got old and turned into the slick, safe touring machine parody of themselves that they are now.
Each musician is clearly in command of their instrument, with clever touches all over, some excellent guitar solos and smart riff writing – playing the game of being technically interesting, but also translating into catchy and groove led, with hooks that stick in the head after the song has finished. The rhythm section needs real focus though; the percussion throughout the album is excellent, bringing an inventive technicality and brutality to the drum parts that really drive the songs. The use of turntables and effects are to an extent integrated effectively, but there are several instances where they feel slightly unnecessary – like extra seasoning on an already well-seasoned dish – and it does become distracting. On the other hand, the use of spoken word samples works well throughout and occasional electronic instrumental interludes, such as ‘Means to an End’ really enhance the ambience of the record. Vocally, we’re very much in the death growl territory with some smart phrasing and a good overall sound, but the few moments of light and shade where a clean vocal (see ‘Disintegrate’) or a shouted style (see the pre-chorus on the particularly ripping ‘Son of the Priest’) is used are perfectly pitched to contrast without becoming overwhelming.
If we take a step back from the detail and focus on the overall, the final verdict is that this is a wonderfully honest and spectacularly heavy album – honest in that the nu-metal influence is clear and worn openly on the sleeve. There’s also remarkably little restraint on display here, the death metal aspects of the tracks work well with the nu-metal rhythms, contemporary djent riffs, industrial dance-y touches and slightly goth-y keyboards. Reaching that level of integration with such a varied mixing pot and still feeling authentic and listenable is a really tough thing to achieve; some would say that Slipknot themselves didn’t fully realise this with Iowa, and moved away from that direction with later releases, so given that Meta-stasis have managed to be so consistently successful with this blend of styles over the course of a 60 minute album is particularly impressive.
Of course, there are times when the pendulum shifts too far in one direction – for example, the end of ‘Welcome To My Asylum’ owes a bit of a slightly cheesy ‘debt’ to ‘Eyeless’ by Slipknot, but these slips into slightly over-familiar or generic territory are reasonably infrequent and are quickly pulled back by another diversion into something more refreshing, and rarely overstay their welcome. And there are some killer tunes on display – ‘I am Nothing’ is a great gem of a song buried in the middle order of the record, ‘Kill Her’ is a brutal blast driven thrash of a song with a lovely clean middle eight drop sporting some lovely female backing vocals for an fantastic contrast with the rest of the unremitting brutality, and ‘Fathomless’ brings some tight djent-y riffing and a surprisingly epic feel. There is very little that doesn’t really work – the only real disappointment is the final track ‘The Body Suffers While The Soul Flowers’, an electronic / acoustic closer with spoken word / samples that aims for atmospheric but actually serves only to end the album on a bit of an anti-climactic wet squib, which is especially jarring following the epic closing strains of ‘Kill Her’.
Overall The Paradox of Metanoia is a vicious, genre-bending trip of an album which is not afraid to cross some boundaries and shout loudly about its allegiances, irrespective of whether or not that may be ‘uncool’. Actually it feels quite refreshing to hear a record that picks what it wants from the vast spectrum of sound available and does not paint itself into a single subgenre silo, ever-decreasing in scope and narrow of mind, an affliction that metal seems to be particularly guilty of. The real triumph is not in the decision to do this, but in the consistency to which this ethic is applied and the quality of the resulting album. To paraphrase a friend of mine when he heard the album – ‘there are riffs, man, lots of riffs’. He nodded sagely while saying this; having spent some time with the songs I’ve taken it to be both high and accurate praise.
