NEGATIVA

This is Negativa's only effort so far and since the former guitarist/vocalist is back to Gorgutz the existence of Negativa is a insecure one. This EP contains over 20 minutes of experimental avant-garde death metal. While I'm a fan of the genre I do not find many albums in the death metal scene I like as a whole. EP's in this genre do fit to my taste and the music stops before it starts boring me. This particular EP doesn't bore me at all; it's actually the best death metal effort I've ever heard.

Negativa can be described as a death metal variant of fellow Canadian extreme metalheads Voivod. It contains dissonance chords and a lot of guitar experimentation. Especially the second track which clock over 9 minutes takes time to experiment. Not often heard in this genre are more silent passages with screeching effects and other chaotic experiments. Even Gorgutz didn't have long tracks for long avant garde experiments. The grunts sound impressive.The songs are quiet slow; especially the second one. The last song is the fastest one and therefor a good ending track.

The production of this death metal record is incredibly good. It's no wall of sound, but carefully produced full bass notes and a lot of sounds in the mid-spectrum. Negativa does use the stereo effect to the fullest which create a broad sound. Because of the good sound, continual interesting use of dissonance and avant-garde experiments I cannot give this effort less then five stars: a death metal masterpiece! This is especially recommended to fans of Voivod and Gorgutz.