UMUR
"Tattered And Bound" is the debut full-length studio album by Canadian death metal act Abriosis. The album as released through Shit Knife Records in early 2011. "Tattered And Bound" is available for free and can be downloaded through the band´s Myspace page.
The music on the album is technical death metal. Lots of impressive fretboard noodling and tempo- and time signature changes. The vocals vary between deep growls and higher pitched aggressive growling. The latter is the dominant vocal style and it has a "core" edge to it, that´s probably an aquired taste for fans of the genre. While the technical playing is very impressive I unfortunately feel that the many tempo changes take away from the flow of the tracks and in the process make them less powerful too. I actually like Abriosis the most when they play the most straight forward death metal sections and concentrate less on technical playing. Other than that the album is pretty solid and consistent in quality. There´s nothing on the album that sticks out as being of especially high quality or are wildly innovative and the tracks aren´t that memorable either but "Tattered And Bound" is pretty enjoyable anyway. At least while it plays.
"Tattered And Bound" should please fans of contemporary technical death metal while fans of the more old school technical death metal sound, might have a slight issue with the "core" leanings and the way the tempo changes are executed. I´d say a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.