Monday, October 8, 2018

Vinyl Review: "Impossible Orbits" by Dephosphorus

Impossible Orbits
When it comes to styles of music, there's one genre that never really grabs me, save for extraordinary circumstances and that's Punk.

It might be the simplicity and brevity of the songs. Perhaps the lack of musicality is what rubs me the wrong way.

Essentially, what it takes for me to be a fan of any punk rock bands is that those bands have to be more than the genre defining sounds.

They have to be genre expanding bands for me to see past the punk rock trappings.

Now, when it comes to metal, there's a country cousin to punk rock and it's Grindcore.

I'm probably going to lose all of my metal, rock, and street cred cards if I keep this course going much longer.

Anyone into heavy music knows just how critical those musical styles were to the evolution of metal. Without punk, we never get Metallica and without grindcore, we never get Death Metal and what would have become of Carcass?

Dephosphorus
Today's band, Dephosphorus, comes to us all the way from Athens, Greece. This makes me wonder if any of them feel that Athenian blood as Theseus did?

Impossible Orbits is their third full length LP, but their seventh release overall. When the band was getting going back in the early portion of this decade, they released an EP and some splits.

If it needs to be spelled out, they are a Grindcore band. The Grindcore label, Selfmadegod Records released this album on CD last year. This year however, 7 Degrees Records is entreating us to the disc on glorious 180 Gram vinyl.

My copy was chock full of bonus bits. 7 Degrees Records straight up made it rain with case candy and that's without sending me the ultra limited, first 100 copies edition.

There's a lyric sheet printed onto cardstock which contains all the pertinents regarding the recording, mastering for vinyl, et al. Interestingly enough, Impossible Orbits was recorded in 2014. Naturally the coming soon advert was tucked in.

There's also a sticker, a full sized poster, and a bandcamp download code. Let's take a moment and reflect on that particular bonus feature. When you download a bandcamp code, you get to put it into your collection and thereby can get it again and again should you require it. Thank you 7 Degrees.

Now, should my allusions have been a touch on the subtle side, let's be a bit more obvious, Dephosphorus's brand of Grindcore is different than most other acts under that label.

Frankly, most bands sound, to me, like a big wall of sound with something resembling a dying human being screeching over the most confused quartet of musicians all at once and all out of time with each other.

That's my truth.

Never while listening to Napalm Death or any other Grindcore acts I enjoy, have I thought to myself, damn that's a bad ass guitar riff. That's the kind of riff that makes me want to grab my guitar, turn on all three of my dirt pedals, and thunder out some chunky rhythms.

Never have I ever, listening to any other grindcore bands thought to myself, damn that bass player can actually play a bit.

However, many times I've thought, damn these songs could really use some bitchin' guitar solos.

How many times have you listened to grindcore and thought, it was really nice that the singer took some time off from assaulting us and let the band play some kick ass riffs and tangents.

There's no question that Dephosphorus belongs in the same genre of music as Napalm Death, Blunt Knife Idol, and others, but what makes this a great record is that it's far closer to early Carcass, ya know back when they were still a Grindcore band, crossed up with Cloud Rat.

Though, they don't make my favorite types of music, much less even a favored sub-genre of metal, Dephosphorus has expanded what it means to be grindcore and churned out a totally thumping album.

7 Degrees Records has scored a major victory on this one. Noe only does it come with all the lovely accoutrements listed above, this disc is on a heavy as hell 180 gram saucer of vinyl.

This is a first class release all the way.

Release: 9/21/18 ORDER FACEBOOK

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