SYMBOLS OF FAILURE

Symbols of Failure is the third studio album from Australian ( Tasmania) extreme tech death metal act Psycroptic. I´m a great fan of Psycroptic´s last album The Scepter of the Ancients and that´s especially due to vocalist Matthew Chalk who made such a great impression on me with his schizophrenic and extreme vocal performance, but of course also because of the fast playing and brutal approach in the music. Matthew Chalk has been replaced on Symbols of Failure though and I´ve been quite concerned about how new singer ( growler) Jason Peppiatt would sound.

After listening to Symbols of Failure I can say that I´m relieved to say that Jason Peppiatt is almost as great as Matthew Chalk. Not quite as schizophrenic but really brutal and sneering when that´s needed. Most of the time the vocals are really deep sub woofer growling and you can´t make out a word which is something I normally don´t favour but here it works pretty well. The style of music that Psycroptic plays can be compared to nineties death metal bands like Morbid Angel, Ripping Corpse and especially Suffocation who has to be Psycroptic´s big heroes. This means that Psycroptic´s music is extremely well played and technical death metal and in addition to that style add a bit more tempo changes and unusual song structures and you got Psycroptic. The style hasn´t changed much since The Scepter of the Ancients and that´s the only problem I have with this album. Well there´s the fact that all songs more or less sounds like each other and it takes many listens to seperate them from each other, but that´s a challenge that I´m up for. You won´t find any melodic soloing or clean pop singing here only ultra brutal tech death metal.

The musicinaship is outstanding and like I did in my review of The Scepter of the Ancients I have to mention drummer David Haley for his outstanding skills. Fast and furious playing, but he is rather sophisticated too. Brother Joe Haley has also cooked up some great riffs this time and if you like fast death thrashy riffing look no further.

The production is more polished than the raw sound on The Scepter of the Ancients and I´m biased if that´s a good thing. I think I prefer the more raw sound on The Scepter of the Ancients.

Symbols of Failure isn´t a big step forward like The Scepter of the Ancients was a big step forward from Psycroptic´s debut album The Ilse of Disenchantment, but less will do this time. Symbols of Failure consolidate that Psycroptic is a force to be reckoned with in the tech death metal genre. Symbols of Failure lies somewhere between a 3 and a 4 star rating but as I think that the album is way above average for the genre I´ll give it a 4.