By:
Ernesto Aguilar
Album Type: Full-length
Date Released: 11/08/2017
Label: Throatruiner
"What
Passes for Survival" is an uncompromising album and you will learn that
fast, right out of the gate. It is impossible
to listen to Pyrrhon's magnificent new release, without admiring the band's fearlessness
and technical prowess. This album is
exactly what extreme metal doubters need to hear.
"What Passes for Survival" CD//DD//LP track
listing
1.
The Happy Victim's Creed
2.
The Invisible Hand Holds A Whip
3.
Goat Mockery Ritual
4.
Tennessee
5.
Trash Talk Landfill
6.
The Unraveling: Hegemony of Grasping Fears
7.
The Unraveling: Free At Last
8.
The Unraveling: Live From The Fresh Corpse
9.
Empty Tenement Spirit
The Review:
It
is hard to say how many people truly understood how significant at the time it
was for the sociopolitical history to be put forward in a breakout song such as
Iron Maiden's 1982 classic "Run to the Hills." The character and manner of Native
American depopulation has been a contentious one for scholars, where terms like
genocide spark heated debate. Yet Bruce Dickinson,
who has made no secret of his personal opinions on a range of topics over the
years, squashed it all for just a second, putting these stories into a song
still heard today, even in the mainstream.
Long
before and long since, metal has, more so than so many genres of popular music,
made cultural commentary part of its fabric. Oppression, injustice and
rebellion all have been subjects in metal as long as, well, there has been
metal. It is thus impossible to listen to Pyrrhon's magnificent
new release, "What Passes for
Survival," without admiring
the band's fearlessness in this regard, and in it, carrying on a tradition that
needs them to do so.
If
you are a fan of Pyrrhon's previous work, this new
recording will draw your attention because the band has a reputation for extreme
music with something extra. The guitars are always more technical, the bass and
drums always more booming and the vocals far more ripping than the next group.
You will not be disappointed at all in this regard. However, Pyrrhon shines brightest in its exceedingly powerful
songwriting. The Brooklyn quartet here crafts its best music yet.
"The
Mother of Virtues," Pyrrhon's
last recording, was renowned for its topical, dense lyrics, where surveillance,
discrimination, wealth inequality and bigotry were laid bare in ways that were
poetic in their presentation rather than preachy. If the title "What Passes for Survival" did
not hint to you already that Pyrrhon were going to
be just as uncompromising, you will learn it fast, right out of the gate.
On
"The Invisible Hand Holds A
Whip," vocal maestro Doug Moore
does not need to name names for song to have punch. "The sources in conflict/Revised and provisional/The havens
offshore/The funding's untraceable/But someone's getting paid/And everyone's
got a theory/Oh, I can feel the hands on me/Pointing me towards the ones I should
hate/Don't tell 'em the maths got minds of their own/They want backs to walls /And
blame always finds a home."
Quite
possibly the only thing heavier than Moore's
lyrics is the music itself. Guitarist Dylan
DiLella, Erik Malave on bass and drummer Steve Schwegler are gifted in how well they play together. Their
style is as far away from your thun-thun-thun metal standard. Instead they create
compositions you just do not expect. "The
Unraveling," a threesome of tracks prefixed as such, is a perfect
exhibit of this unique approach. DiLella
presents several inventive chord progressions and Malave's bass work is visionary. As we close with "Empty Tenement Spirit," you
will feast on Schwegler's violently
passionate drums, which are a real treat.
"What
Passes for Survival" is exactly what extreme metal
doubters need to hear. Now, if only other genres of music could be nearly as
intellectual and technical.
