![]() My only real disappointment with Planetary Duality is in the disc's production and mixing. The Faceless make the majority of their technical passages seem as effortless as the less intricate ones. All too often, bands seem to rely too much on their speed or timing to mask their songwriting deficiencies. ![]() Virtuoso guitar work is accented at every turn by a rhythm section that pulls out every trick and tempo in the book over the course of the album. It's not a disc that pushes boundaries genre-wise, but the band has certainly set themselves apart from a talent standpoint. It's relatively apparent that founding member and lead guitarist Michael Keene is a quick study, building on metal both current and past for his own band's future. The Faceless have a knack for fitting all their musicianship neatly into songs that are both well-structured and concise. If the talk of tech already has you tuning out, I would strongly urge you to reconsider. Planetary Duality may clock in at a relatively lean thirty-one minutes, but there are more than enough good ideas, face-melting riffs and technical flourishes to satisfy even the most gluttonous tech-head. These guys pull off what 99% of bands who have been at this a lot longer have failed miserably at simply by making the segues, experiments and left-field bits work in context. While it might be easy to nail them on their impetuous co-opting of Cynic's trademark vocoder routine in "The Ancient Covenant" or the unfortunately comical vocal shortcomings on "Sons of Belial," you would have to be pretty fucking jaded to write this album off altogether. To be honest, their latest release Planetary Duality hits most of its bases so precisely that it nearly becomes suspect. As a result, they've since developed into one of the most technically adept and virtually flawless acts of the variety that I've ever heard. "Planetary Duality" sees the best aspects of deathcore and death metal unite in a feat of stunning musicianship that, if anything, should bring the two camps closer to each other.Tech death metal act The Faceless have spent the last few years since their debut release tirelessly touring with some of the best death metal acts on the planet. Although the band's influences are obvious, they play into The Faceless' own tricks as inspiration, not as borrowed elements from those bands. ![]() Unlike many deathcore aspirants, "Planetary Duality" isn't instantly forgettable: it's both extreme and beautiful without ever compromising the unwritten rules of the genre. Through sci-fi imagery, state-of-the-art production, clever use of melody, and an underlying progressive drive, The Faceless have been able to create an ultra-modern album which is far more accessible than is the norm in the genre. In fact, it's these playful elements รก la Between The Buried And Me together with the progressive aspects familiar to fans of Cynic that lift The Faceless from the host of other bands of this type to be shepherds rather than sheep. The sci-fi context in particular is a welcome change to the usual death and gore imagery bands of this kind like to play with, and although the robotic voice that occasionally interrupts the vocalist's guttural growl sounds strange, it never sounds out of place. Keene's virtuosity in not only shredding the shit out of his axe, but in song-writing, too, keeps things interesting throughout. It puts a smile on my face to know that hardcore poster boys with clean haircuts and death metal t-shirts can pull this off better than most grizzly metal dudes who are true to the cause, so to say, and honestly, who gives a fuck if their lifestyles don't reflect the music they make when it's this good. Yes, the production is clean, and lo and behold, there are some clean vocals here and there, but "Planetary Duality", like it or not, is first and utmost a technical death metal album and a very good one at that. "Planetary Duality" comes to a time where deathcore is outpacing death metal, yet despite the fact that everything about this band indicates that they belong in that pack, The Faceless have taken care not to blend in. ![]() So fast, that the undersigned had to listen to the opening riff of "Prison Born" multiple times before admitting that yes, that sound did, in fact, come from shredding on an electric guitar rather than a chainsaw cutting through thick wood, and that he has earned every letter of his pseudonym. The Faceless is the brainchild of guitarist Michael "Machine" Keene, who reasons that if it no longer suffices to play fast, the solution must be to play even faster. The Faceless Planetary Duality Written by: AP
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