THE FACELESS — Planetary Duality (review)

THE FACELESS — Planetary Duality album cover Album · 2008 · Technical Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
topofsm
For anyone with an eye on this album, get ready for a brutal technical experience. This album is filled with blastbeats, complex time changes, deep death growls, and technical guitars. In fact, there's so much in it, quite a bit of it will come across a bit as immemorable. Even after several listens, most of this album will seem like a blur, since there is very little in the way of melody or memorable riffs. It's still a killer technical listen though.

However, one will get to know the sounds of certain tracks. If a track could be described as memorable on this album it would probably be "The Ancient Covenant" with a killer bass intro and quick arpeggios sewn through it. Another great one is "Legion of the Serpent", which is actually quite memorable, with melodic organ parts throughout and a progressive metal melody flowing throughout.

Of course, there's Shape Shifters which is for the most part a short, eerie instrumental with strange synth/guitar. However, it doesn't really fit with rest of the album in terms of composition.

There's much more to Planetary Duality then just technical death metal too. Vocoder vocals are common, but the robotic voices don't add at all to the accessibilty of the music. If anything, it just makes it more unusual and abrasive. There are a few instances of actual singing in the album, but it sounds rather out of place. Imagine James Labrie in Nile for example, and that should give the idea. Also one can find a few interesting piano lines.

All in all, it's a great album if you want to go crazy with your metal head friends. It is one of the most brutal and technical death metal releases in the past decade, and is sure to be a good listen.
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