UMUR "In Becoming a Ghost" is the fourth full-length studio album by US, California based death metal act The Faceless. The album was released through Sumerian Records in December 2017. It´s the successor to "Autotheism" from August 2012. Only band founder/guitarist/keyboard player/clean- and vocoder vocalist Michael Keene remains from the lineup who recorded the predecessor and by this point it´s 100% clear that The Faceless is Keene´s baby. Further proof of that is that he has also recorded the bass parts on "In Becoming a Ghost" and is responsible for producing, engineering, mixing, and mastering "In Becoming a Ghost" at his own Keene Machine Studios. So although Ken Sorceron (vocals), Justin McKinney (rhythm guitars), and Chason Westmoreland (drums) are credited for performing on "In Becoming a Ghost", I´m not so sure that it´s a permanent band constellation.

While The Faceless first two albums ("Akeldama" from 2006 and "Planetary Duality" from 2008) were both scorching technical and quite brutal death metal albums with a progressive edge, "Autotheism" took the progressive element of the band´s music a bit further and left behind some of the most brutal parts of the band´s music, and that tendency is continued on "In Becoming a Ghost" which is a highly progressive and technical death metal album, featuring more clean vocals than any The Faceless releases before it and the album also features a lot of excursions into progressive metal territories in terms of unconventional song structures and songwriting ideas. This is still to some extent death metal and at times still pretty extreme music, but the extremity of the band´s music is often overshadowed by the adventurous songwriting ideas and melodic and atmospheric approach to their compositions.

"In Becoming a Ghost" is well produced, featuring a powerful, detailed, and clear sound, which suits the material well. So upon conclusion it´s another high quality release from The Faceless. If you enjoyed the more progressive inclined songwriting on "Autotheism" over the technical and brutal death metal of "Akeldama" and "Planetary Duality", then "In Becoming a Ghost" should most certainly be right down your alley. Compared to "Autotheism" I´d even say that The Faceless master this style better on "In Becoming a Ghost", which to my ears is a more coherrent release (including the cover version of "Shake the Disease" by Depeche Mode). The one feature bringing my rating down a bit is the clean vocals. They aren´t out of tune or badly performed but Keene simply doesn´t have a very interesting or distinct sounding voice. It´s like listening to the clean vocals on Enslaved´s releases. They´re decently performed and quite inoffensive, but they don´t really add much to the music. They are just there and it´s hard not to think that the music would have had more impact with a stronger vocalist performing the clean vocal parts. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved.

UMUR "Planetary Duality" is the second full-length studio album by US, California based death metal act The Faceless. The album was released through Sumerian Records in November 2008 (reissued by Lifeforce Records in February 2009). It is a self-produced release produced by guitarist/clean vocalist Micheal Keene. Drummer Lyle Cooper has been added to the lineup since the debut album "Akeldama" (2006) (which was mostly recorded using session drummers) but the rest of the lineup who recorded the debut album remains.

The music style featured on the album is technical death metal. It´s both pretty brutal and melodic at the same time. The guitar riffs are sharp and fast with lots of precise and technically complex drumming to go along. The vocals are mostly deep brutal growls (a few higher pitched screams too) but there are occasional clean/vocoder vocals featured too which is great for the variation of the album. One of my favorite features on the album are the many melodic guitar solos though. Very skillfully executed and an oasis of beauty in the midst of the brutal fast-paced and busy death metal. The vocoder parts provide the music with some futuristic/sci-fi sounding atmospheric moments which are another part of the music providing it with variation.

The album opens with the short and brutal "Prison Born" and quickly continues with the more progressive "The Ancient Covenant". That song is simply amazing technical death metal. Powerful and fast with some great guitar motifs. "Shape Shifters" is a short instrumental breather before "Coldy Calculated Design" begins and we´re once again treated with a fast-paced and technical death metal track. "Xeno Christ" is a bit different and heavier but still with faster parts. Great varied song that one. "Sons of Belial" is the song with most obvious use of clean vocals even though those vocals actually only occur twice in the song and only for a few seconds at a time. I didn´t care much for the clean vocals the first many times I listened to the album but I´ve come to appreciate them a little more with repeated listens of the album.

"Legion of the Serpent" is next and it´s the most melodic song on the album, featuring some interesting melodic breaks. It´s a great song and very important for the diversity of the album (the fast-paced neo-classical parts remind me of The Black Dahlia Murder). "Planetary Duality I : Hideous Revelation" is an intro to "Planetary Duality II : A Prophecies Fruition". The short intro track has some sci-fi samples which really creates the right atmopshere before the going into "Planetary Duality II : A Prophecies Fruition" which is another excellent technical death metal track.

The musicianship is outstanding on all posts. This is very complex and demanding music and The Faceless are a very tight playing unit. Add to that a clear, powerful, and detailed sound production and you have a high quality release on your hands. It´s like listening to the US hybrid version of Obscura and Necrophagist, although The Faceless don´t sound like a close. But there are a lot of similarities.

So upon conclusion The Faceless hit something special on "Planetary Duality". They hinted on greatness on "Akeldama", but they´ve developed their style a lot since the debut album, and by incorporating a lot of different influences and musical elements and songwriting ideas to their compositions (technical death metal, brutal death metal, progressive metal, even black metal), "Planetary Duality" is a both varied and intriguing technical death metal release from start to finish. They keep the listener on his/her toes throughout the album but still maintain a sort of accessibility that you don´t get often when listening to highly technical death metal releases. A 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is deserved.

Sea Whisperer THE FACELESS is a Technical Death metal band from Encino, California, founded by guitarist Michael Keene and bassist Brandon Giffin in 2004. Their debut album “Akeldama” (“Field of blood” in Aramaic), released in 2006, turned out to be very mature and well-written work, showing immense potential of the collective.

To say that music on “Akeldama” is diverse is to make an understatement. This album can serve as an encyclopedia of technical extreme metal, incorporating almost any trick from its arsenal you can think of. Differently sounding parts replace each other in quick succession. At one moment we hear NILE-like tremolo riffs with recognizable oriental mood, at next – a NECROPHAGIST-styled part and then – Deathcore breakdowns. To keep all these different fragments consistent and prevent songs from falling apart is a difficult task by itself, but most of the time the band is capable to do just that, thanks to Michael Keene’s songwriting talents (and small length of the songs, I guess). Despite of being influenced by some colleagues from tech-death scene, on this album THE FACELESS already developed their own style – cascades of intricate riffs, rapid changes in rhythm and tempo, sudden stops, intense, aggressive drumming, very neat use of keyboards, providing additional coloration and depth of the music, and using both clean and harsh vocals.

Production of the album is amazing: guitar tone is thick and edgy, bass is audible, drums are clear and loud. Musicianship is impressive – from guest drummers’ great performance to spectacular guitar work by Michael Keene, who delivers tons of technically challenging riffs and several tasteful solos, without slipping to mindless shredding. Derek Rydquist’s vocals, both screaming and growling, fit music perfectly.

My personal favourites from this album are “Horizons of Chaos I: Oracle of the Onslaught”, starting and ending with a very memorable “flowing” riff, “Leica”, containing some cool harmonized solos (if Halloween played Technical Death metal, they would probably sound something like that), and a title track, a brilliant Fusion Metal instrumental (reminding of some songs by Counter-World Experience), featuring great solo parts by all players (especially Keene and the drummer) and dreamy atmosphere.

Summary: a very solid debut, complex and diverse, marking the beginning of the way of one of the most interesting Technical Death metal bands nowadays.

Necrotica Up until now, my relationship with The Faceless had been a slowly deteriorating one. When I first heard Planetary Duality and Akeldama back in 2009, I thought it was the heaviest, fastest, and most technical shit on the planet. The intricate guitar harmonies, the frenzied drumming, and varied vocal work made it clear to me that we were witnessing a fantastic new beacon for technical death metal. Throw in some progressive rock influences and some creepy sci-fi interludes for good measure, and things just got more interesting. But sadly, Autotheism ruined the good will built up by many fans. It wasn’t an awful album, but it sounded disjointed and undercooked by the band’s standards. And of course, lead guitarist and (I guess) figurehead Michael Keene’s ego seemed to be getting in the way of the band’s future. So it’s pretty safe to say that I was approaching In Becoming a Ghost with much more caution than usual. Luckily, I’m pleased to report that my fears have mostly been erased.

In Becoming a Ghost is largely defined by a more cinematic, progressive identity than its predecessors, and it can be considered the band’s furthest removed from their original sound. But, bizarrely enough, this isn’t as much of a problem as you’d think. The experimentation is wrapped up in song structures and lyrical themes that are both engaging and tight, and the progressive elements serve more to bolster the atmosphere than be an excuse to noodle around. As if the haunting piano part of the intro title track wasn’t cool enough, we get to hear some killer tech-death flute melodies (!) and full-on symphonic passages in its followup “Digging the Grave.” That’s not to say the aggression is absent, though; Abigail Williams vocalist Ken Sorceron is more than enough to fill the shoes of Derek Rydquist with his strong mix of guttural growls and black metal shrieks. The riffs are still quite punishing in parts too, especially in the killer tremolo-picked riff that kicks of “The Spiralling Void.” But the difference between this album and Autotheism is that it seems to have more purpose to it. I get the sense that the band members genuinely put their all into this one, and that they really wanted to experiment around with what they thought was cool. Oftentimes, the framework surrounding the riffs is just as interesting as the riffs themselves, such as the weird staccato bass stabs that dance around the guitar intro of “I Am” or the deranged orchestral breaks in “Shake the Disease.” As for the problems with the album, I only have two major ones. One is, as in Autotheism, that Michael Keene’s voice gets way too much time in the spotlight. Remember when his voice would pop up very sparingly in Planetary Duality to add a little extra atmosphere and variety" Well, he sings in just about every track here. And, simply put, his voice is just boring. His inflections make him sound uninterested with the subject matter, and he draws attention away from the far superior performances of Ken Sorceron. Also, while the band’s technical skills are still impressive, the riffs aren’t the most memorable around. This has been a problem with past Faceless records, but sometimes the band get so caught up in their experimentation and technicality that their riffs don’t really stick with you very well. But maybe that’s because In Becoming a Ghost will need a bit more time to sink in. Regardless, it’s impressive what they accomplished here. It seems as though the band are getting closer to fully realizing their potential as a progressive death metal band; it’s just time that they tightened up their songcraft... and perhaps let Michael Keene stick to just his guitar playing and songwriting.

UMUR "Akeldama" is the debut full-length studio album by US, California based technical/progressive death metal act The Faceless. The album was released through Sumerian Records in November 2006. The Faceless was formed in 2004 and was at that point a four-piece without a permanent drummer. The drumming on the album is therefore handled by no less than four different session drummers. All skilled performers, who deliver fast precision playing, suiting the band´s demanding music perfectly.

Stylistically the material on the 8 track, 33:18 minutes long album is technical/progressive death metal with the occasional nod towards deathcore and more than a few parts which can be labelled melodeath. When the latter parts occur I´m reminded of an artist like The Black Dahlia Murder, but that is only a part of the band´s sound, and the music on "Akeldama" is generally a much more varied size.

The album opens with "An Autopsy", and it´s one of those tracks that´ll blow most listeners away. Jaw-dropping techncial playing, compositional diversity, and just loads of power and aggression. Pretty soon The Faceless introduce a little clean singing, deathcore breakdowns, and progressive structures and adventurous ideas, which ultimately make "Akeldama" a little more than your standard technical/progressive death metal release. The vocals vary between deep growling and higher pitched screaming (and as mentioned above the occasional clean vocal part).

"Akeldama" features a clear, powerful, and detailed sound production, which suits the material perfectly. So upon conclusion "Akeldama" is a high quality debut album by The Faceless. Some of the excursions into progressive territories make the overall flow of the album slightly inconsistent, but overall it´s a pretty impressive first release by the band and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.