Short Reviews [Rings of Saturn - 2019 - "Gidim"]

The alien themed tech-death metalheads are back with their fifth album, which according to guitarist Lucas Mann is a return to the roots of their second and third albums, namely ‘DIngir’ (2012) and ‘Lugal El Kin’ (2014). Having not heard any of their music prior to this, it’s difficult for me to comment, but I guess this is therefore quite different to their last album ‘Ultu Ulla’. Musically, the only thing I am really sure of with this is that the note density is off the scale as they mix technical death metal with mathcore and djent and then keep making it go faster. It is incredibly complex, and there are times when the blastbeats surely are not being generated by human feet. There is also a great deal of palm muting going on and the result is something which is incredibly staccato and sounds at times almost like something being put together by the likes of Dik Mik as opposed to guitarists. It is brutal, and they slow it down at times just so they can impress us all with their incredible speed at the end. It is an interesting album, but it doesn’t contain the harmony and cohesiveness of many speed merchants and there is certainly a feeling that at times they are doing it just because they can as opposed to where it makes musical sense. It is as if Nile and Protest The Hero had a child, and then they went into a studio and were raised with an electro background. There isn’t any electro within it, but some of the sounds being generated and the approach is often more at home in that field that in the metal one. It is interesting, and the musicians involved are obviously highly skilled indeed, but in many ways, this is hard to listen to as it is often technically brilliant as opposed to musically so.