PRIMITIVE CIRCUITRY

A stark improvement over this one-man project's first album 'Antimonument', Deterior's third album shows the work of Andrew Arnold progressing deeper into a sludge and post-metal realm. Highly distorted and bellowing guitars are the order of the day here, along with harsh growls to add to the raw atmosphere of the music. While Deterior has created a decent, sometimes even great piece of post-metal here however, the music does seem a little too content to wallow under the shadow of great post-metal bands to be worth a total recommendation.

Typically, the way Deterior's music (from what I've heard) used to work would be instrumental rock, drawn out and feeling as if it was going somewhere, but ultimately failing in its attempt. With 'Primitive Circuitry', the sound feels quite a bit more professional here, so there are no real complaints concerning the production, perhaps besides the fake drums. In terms of the guitars, things are generally very heavy and basic in the way they are brought along, although the best parts of the album are when melodies will make their way through the wall of sludge. However, Deterior's big flaw rests in the fact that it sounds far too much like the giants of post- metal; such as Isis, and Cult of Luna. The sludgy guitars sound like they could have been taken out of any early Luna release (as with the growls) and the clean vocals sound like they were taken from an Isis outtake. With such conclusions being drawn even early into the album, it's difficult to recommend the album, when there are many other things out there that sound similar. The clean vocals here are quite well done all things considered, although the growls do feel a bit lackluster on the other hand.

Overall, Deterior has some great potential, and some of the sludgy riffs here are excellent, but I would really like to see a greater sense of innovation and originality from Andrew Arnold's work before giving a higher rating.