Decrepit Birth – Polarity (2010)

When people usually tell me that X band sounds like Death, I usually chuckle and leave before I call that person ignorant and have a heated debate on how that band NOT even closely sounds like Death. Today somebody told me that Decrepit Birth sounded a bit like Death (musically), so I again chuckled and proceeded to end the conversation, however I had “Polarity” on my review queue so I decided to entertain this thought for a bit and have an open mind about this American band.

To my amazement, “It sounds like Death (the band)” is the best statement to describe Decrepit Birth and their monumental third full-length album “Polarity”. Featuring 11 songs of pure Death metal wizardry, I haven’t heard something as brilliant as this album in quite a while and haven’t enjoyed a (Technical/Progressive) Death Metal since the last Death albums. And since I was not a huge fan of Chuck Schuldiner’s terrible vocals, Decrepit Birth greatly improves over Death in this department.

Matt Sotelo, the band’s guitar player, feels like the reincarnation of Chuck, since he manages to pull of some of the best riffs and solos I have heard in a Death Metal release in years. The band’s similarity to Death gets bit too eerie after listening to this album more than a few times, and it might unleash the dozens of critics claiming “rip-off”, but for us, it was like re-discovering a great long lost band after almost a decade.

Like you would imagine, the riff machine behind “Polarity” is very diverse and creates very enjoyable songs. We never found ourselves wanting this release to be over, even after listening to it over 3 times straight. There are some weird things here and there, like the spacey song “A Brief Odyssey In Time”, but nothing too critical to make us dislike this album too much.

The drumming is the only thing that completely annoyed the shit out of us for the most part of “Polarity”. We are ‘treated’ to a double-kick session that never ends; I find it rather annoying that 85% of the drums are double-kick sections that get super dull after two songs. The first few times I listened to this album I completely blocked off the drumming since I was intoxicated by the riffing, but latter on my head started to hurt from a double-kick overdose, the same we got by listening to the band Faust.

We wished that “Polarity” was 100% perfect since the guitar work alone of this album is worth its weight in gold, but you can’t usually have the sweet without the sour. If you are a fan of Technical/Progressive Death Metal and the band Death, you will be in nirvana after listening to this amazing release.

Release: July 27th, 2010

Country: USA