Spacecorpse – Shapeshifter
Spacecorpse – Shapeshifter
Self-Released
Release Date: 26/07/24
Running Time: 30:14
Review by Dark Juan
6/10
I promised Mrs Dark Juan that I would not write this. She is of the opinion that it will be misinterpreted. Time to drag the mighty Platter of Splatter ™ out of storage, I feel. Let us hit the power switch and place upon it the latest offering from Denver, Colorado, in the United States of America – this being “Shapeshifter” from Spacecorpse.
Let’s hook up the life support and blast our ways the fuck out of here on a wave of sci-fi influenced Death Metal, shall we? Sat Nav – Set your course for the second star to the right and straight on till morning.
Well, Spacecorpse certainly have chops. We can say that with certainty. Even if there is a bit of an over-reliance on distended harmonics in their music. They are also a frighteningly competent bunch of musicians, but I have a problem.
I just don’t dig their music. You all know that Dark Juan is a ragingly enthusiastic fan of Tech Death and anything science fiction, and really rates the likes of Fractal Generator (being a supposedly Canadian band who operate in a very similar stratum to Spacecorpse) but for some reason Spacecorpse don’t resonate with me.
I feel guilty writing this because there’s nothing wrong with Spacecorpse, particularly. I do feel the drums are too far forward in the mix and that the guitar loses clarity at times, but they are minor niggles and Spacecorpse are a pretty new band, it’s just that my soul isn’t resonating to their music and Dark Juan finds it too disjointed and at times far too clever for its own good. ‘Portals’ being a prime example of this with its multiple movements, faux-classical grandiosity and the fact that each movement doesn’t have anything to do with anything that has previously happened musically in the song. There’s also a spectacularly overdone cover of Metallica’s ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’, which is again, perfectly reasonably executed but it is hilariously over-the top with the Death Metal grunting and Grindcore snarling replacing the engaging growl of Hetfield and frantic double bass drumming overpowering the riffing and everything else. You also don’t finish a record on a cover version of someone else’s song. It makes your record look like you have run out of ideas for your own music and you have just decided to bung a cover on there to pad out the runtime.
I want to like Spacecorpse so badly, but I can’t.
The music doesn’t gel. It’s disjointed and angular and ill thought-out at times. The vocals are perfectly fine but are a tiny bit too low in the mix for the taste of Dark Juan and the drums overpower everything on frequent occasions. The softer parts of the music sound like they were recorded in a different studio and by a different person at different times to the more Metallic parts of the record and they serve mainly as a distraction, as do the synth textures the band employ. In fact, the only time all the elements of the band work together effectively are on the final four minutes of ‘Psychesynthesis’, which is a fucking amazing four minutes of Progressive Death Metal magic, which ably combines the prodigious throat of Reece Deeter, expansive synthesizer work and some highly destructive riffing from Ricky Shine (who is also responsible for bass guitar).
The opening tune on the record, ‘Celestial Gateway’, is arguably one of the best on there, being a short, sharp, brutally stabbing shock of instrumental Death Metal with a strong synth component that ably creates an atmosphere of cold and unforgiving void surrounding you in your little, leaky tin-can starship before the record breaks into the first proper full-length song, ‘Infiniphenism’, and this is where the band arguably have the problem of having too many ideas in one song – I counted five separate movements in just over four minutes, and at least two of those movements would have benefitted from being the centrepieces of their own songs. There are times when too much is never enough, and there are times when too much is just fucking annoying. Spacecorpse fall into the second category – their music is constructed in such a way that you are beginning to really get into a groove and start to feel the music, but then they will change it up. The listener is constantly on edge and unable to relax into the band because they are so insistent on taking away the bit you’re enjoying every minute or so.
And that’s pretty much all I have to say about Spacecorpse, really. They have absolutely bags of potential, but they need to work on arrangements and not trying to cram an entire symphony’s worth of movements into three and a half minutes. Let your music flow and breathe, gentlemen!
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System awards Spacecorpse 6/10 for a record that has promise but falls ultimately short of what they were trying to accomplish.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Celestial Gateway
02. Infiniphenism
03. Gravitational Dismemberment
04. Shapeshifter
05. Psychesynthesis
06. Portals
07. For Whom The Bell Tolls
LINE-UP:
Reece Deeter – Vocals
Ricky Shine – Guitars, bass
Andrew Morris – Drums
LINKS:
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