UMUR
Engineering the Rule is the debut full-length studio album by American technical thrash metal act Gnostic. Gnostic features several members of the reformed Atheist, including founding member of Atheist, drummer Steve Flynn, which is how I was led to the band. Engineering the Rule was released by Season of Mist in May 2009.
If you come to the album expecting to hear something in the vein of Atheist, you´ve come to the right place. The music on the album is technical thrash metal on the border to death metal and the instrumental part of the album is extremely well played and very impressive. We´re talking fusion elements and high speed tempo- and time signature changes at any given moment on the album. The atmosphere is intense and fiercely aggressive and the musicianship is excellent. So far so good. I greatly enjoy that part of the album. What I don´t enjoy and what ruins my listening experience is the yelling and screaming metalcore lead vocalist. Kevin Freeman´s style is tiresome and quite frankly annoying and prevents me from enjoying an album I´m sure I would have enjoyed greatly, had the band chosen another vocalist. And I´ve really tried many times to see if his style would grow on me, but the opposite is unfortunately the case.
The production is a bit thin and lacks warmth, but it´s acceptable.
Engineering the Rule unfortunately ends up as a big disappointment for me. Almost solely because of the vocals and it´s such a shame because the album had the potential to be something really great. I can´t give less than a 2.5 - 3 star rating but personally I don´t enjoy myself.