Crossfaith - Deus Ex Machina (Review)

Usually band Crossfaith is associated with a lot of emotions. And it's no wonder - a simple material is easily served, if you grumble pathos face and wildly scream. It's good, if you are technically developing at the same time. It's bad, if you are increasingly exploiting this model.

My Rating: 69/100

Source: amazon.com

I remembered it because here you can see all the same pattern 6 years ago, but slightly modified. Here you can hear again the riffs characteristic of groove metal and metalcore with a lot of synthesizer. This idea is very risky, because success depends very much on composer and sound designer abilities. That is, if you try, as they say in Russia, to jump higher than your head, it will only get worse.

And in this release you can notice that there is a big bet on composer's work. But composer's work on medium level. Of course, it is worth noting the filigree arrangement of instrumental parts - a large number of difficult to place within 3 or 4 minutes. Also, changing the composition in tracks 4 and 6 is an interesting solution. But in general, I do not see the composer as something very complicated. Also there was not without frank hackwork (7, 8 tracks).

Vocal parts are very diverse. In addition to standard extreme / clean set, you can still hear the recitative (4 tracks). Vocal parts structures can not be called very complicated or unusual, but vocalist is good.

Instrumental parts - everything is predictable here. The first thing you can notice is a huge amount of synthesizer. A large number poorly compensates for the technical simplicity, but it's located in right places. Although if you listen, it's, most of all, a standard set from Korg Wavestation. Of course, there are also other FX that complement the structures in an interesting way, but this is not enough. Also here you can hear the guitar riffs on Drop B tuning. But you can only hear a complicated guitar riff in 2 tracks. In the rest - nothing interesting. Also worth noting is the very intense rhythm section. Even in areas where you can do with the usual patterns, drummer grinding as a machine. I don't know if it's a composer's idea or something else, but drummer shows himself well.

10 years ago it would be interesting. But in our time it has become something standard. While listening to this album you can wildly headbanging with beer, but it's hard to call "the art". I remember listening with pleasure to EP "ZION". But now I don't see something very surprising. Yes, work is good. But the only thing they've learned to do better in these 6 years is screaming louder and more pathos.