EMBODIMENT

SCULPTURED is a unique avant-garde metal band from Camas, WA in the USA. Although EMBODIMENT: COLLAPSING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF GOD is their 3rd release it is so far the only one I have had the pleasure of gracing my auditory system with. Reading about their history it seems like this is a different album from them since they have included brass instruments in the past and have Thomas Walling as a new vocalist on this one. After an eight year gap between albums it seems like changes were likely. This band is known as the second band for Agalloch members Don Anderson (guitar) and Jason Walton (bass). Although there is a scant trace of the folk metal of Agalloch, most of this music sounds nothing even remotely close to that band.

To me this music sounds like a successful hybrid of the tech death metal that Death was famous for mixed with an alternative metal approach as found on "The Real Thing" album by Faith No More. On the tech death metal side we get the complex riffing and sudden time changes as well as the growly vocals. On the "Real Thing" side we get many influences including funky bass lines, loungy piano runs, guitar chord progressions and riffs that Jim Martin employed and just some of the overall feel that the album exuded. SCULPTURED doesn't stop there though. Those are the two biggest influences I can detect but there are others as well. This is an album that really figured out how to balance everything quite remarkably. There is always a tension when they go off on some highly progressive time signature journey and it always feels like the whole thing is about to collapse but they always manage to incorporate everything into a larger melodic framework. There is also samples from the 1981 film "Possession" as well as from a short film called "Camera."

I'm actually quite impressed with this album and find it more than holds up on repeated listens. Although discovering an album so masterfully done is cause for excitement, I am quite apprehensive to seek out their earlier albums for it seems that they aren't at the same technical level as this one going by the reviews. I probably will visit them if I have the chance but am happy to say that this album is quite deserving of the reputation it has earned in the avant-garde metal world. I also quite love all the art work in the booklet which is imagery from the National Library Of Medicine. Great album all the way around. 4.5 rounded up