lista zespołów Technical Death Martyr (CAN) Feeding the Abscess

"...something without physical...
disturbing my frequency..."
Voivod – Brainscan
Sometimes it takes one pebble to build a whole new world. Sometimes it takes one note to start a song. Sometimes it takes one bass player to discover a band. And sometimes it takes one brain scan to change your life.

For years, I was considering Voivod the best canadian band and there wasn't a living soul could convince me to change my mind. I was grabbing all kind of their stuff I was able to get. While searching some info on their ex-bass player Jean Yves Theriault – Blacky, I stumbled upon a band called Martyr that did a cover of Voivod's song Brainscan, featuring Blacky on the bass. As truly devoted 80-es thrash fanatic, I must admit I've never been into extreme form of music such as death and its subgenres and terms like "technical death" I've been connecting to bands Necrophagist and Nile, full stop. But for the love of Voivod and Blacky, I've decided to victimize and "punish" my senses and listen to Martyr's album Feeding the Abscess featuring the song Brainscan.

Before I put Martyr's album on, I was listening to some old demo with horrible sound, so I had to raise the volume up and then forgot to turn it down... and SWEET MOTHER NATURE!!! ...an explosion got right out of the speakers, hit me right between the eyes, and nailed me to the floor... I found myself paralyzed while all of my senses were practically bleeding!!! For next 40 minutes, I was completely overwhelmed by this unbelievable mixture of sounds, silence, emotions, speed, electric guitars and violins – a perfectly organized chaos! When all was over, only one thing crossed my mind: This is not a deed of common mortals... I played the album once again but this time I turned the volume down and tried to focus on the music much more. I experienced almost identical sensation but not as strong as the first one of course. An astonishing thing – beauty and brutality packed in one. Explosive sounds are cut for a second or more, by silence or Antoine Bareil brilliant violin. And from time to time, even the guitars sound like violins.

But I was right in one thing – Feeding the Abscess is not an album done by common mortals, for members of Martyr are highly educated, jazz musicians and that fact does explain a lot! When one listens to the album, one cannot listen to it partially or randomly, simply because then it has no sense – this album looks and sounds like a jazz session: it starts with Perpetual Healing (Infinite Pain) and ends with Brainscan and if one tries to toss tracks up, the main thread gets lost - one song, both musically and lyrically, is an overture for the next one, sometimes, one can't even tell when one finishes and another starts. This connection is the most obvious on the brilliant four parts track called Lost Horizons.

Music it self is a fantastic, I dare to say, jazz and metal fusion – one second it's fast and blasting drumming explosion and the next it's slow and calming – it makes one feel like swimming against the waves. It really takes more than talent and brains to combine jazz and metal and make something sounds like Feeding the Abscess. And I mustn't neglect the role of Antoine Bareil and his 40 seconds almost hypnotic violin solo closing the song Havoc.

And yes, I mustn't forget the lyrics... they are self explanatory – "imperfect perfection...perfectly imperfect..." a definition of perfectly ordered chaos made by the music. Somehow, they just fall into places, like a puzzle pieces – broken, mixed and put back together. Although music is explosive and storming, the lyrics aren't brutal at all... in fact, from the very beginning, from Perpetual Healing (Infinite Pain), they tell a story of the human mind and spirit, conscience and subconscious – they tell a story about human being socially inept, left alone in the world of cruelty, megalomania and evil... "shell of shocked life, truth held concealed...", that human is completely lost in his sanity and all of his life he does nothing but "...battling sailless windmills..."

Feeding the Abscess is not an album you'd bang your head to – it's the album that bangs YOU in the head! It shows that one doesn't have to be pierced and tattooed up to their noses to make blasting and explosive technical death metal... and it also shows that lyrics talking about actual human problems are not less metal than those talking about devils, demons, Satan and all sorts of fantasy and mythology matters.

Feeding the Abscess is art. Pure metal art.
Daniel Mongrain, François Mongrain, Martin Carbonneau and Patrice Hamelin are pure metal artists.

Talking music mastery and skills, I think metal has reached its zenith in the form of technical death. Canadian technical death scene holds its crown and Martyr is the shiniest jewel in it.