Review from “Metal Hammer”
“I had a big dilemma in choosing the Demon of the Month for the August issue of Metal Hammer. It was a lot of new bands there making clear that they can beat down the competitors. And also the older, experienced guys from Mortis Dei are coming out with surprising fresh mixture of traditional and modern music. But Demon of the Month goes to Neurothing and the criteria ware clear- “Murder Book” didn’t leave my CD player for two weeks. There was no choice. I’m digging it and recommend it to you…
I listened to the first full length Neurothing album without hiding the pleasure. And here it comes, the new, mature and god damn convinced band. The band deserved like almost no one else the “modern metal” term. Or maybe “groove metal” or “math metal”? But it’s not about terminology. The band did something without looking around at trends and rules.
After few goes with the “Murder Book” the main ascertainment is that Neurothing focused more on rhythm and arrangement than on composition. And everything on this album follows this idea. Precision of rationing out the phrases and thinking about every change, note and accent made this album one of the most mathematic albums in this country. Even though the band gets the inspiration from Kobong and Meshuggah doesn’t mean that they get trapped and play the same notes. They do it in their own way without trying to be better than the “master” because it always ends up bad. And in the same time they are showing their outstanding skills with convenience. It can make many great Polish musicians feel bad.
After some time you can hear some kind of monotony if it comes to the riffs but the band made it interesting because of adding additional “dirty sounds” so it doesn’t leave the listener unsatisfied. Guitars and drums play the role of a huge metronome which crushes everything around and leaves no doubts when it comes to the players’ intentions. But the band is clever, even monotonous riffs they can play moving out from the standards and it becomes more interesting. For example “Railroad Track” with riff slowing down like a gramophone when you switch it off.
And next thing: arrangements. I have no power to point everything but you won’t get bored even for one second during these 35 minutes. The amount of twisted ideas and surprising turning points will make your head spin. And there’s no chaos, rather skilful and trained organism which became one monolithic and god damn pleasuring diamond.
And now the concrete facts: the favourite moments on the album are “Kill It” which after delicate intro decapitates the head with the precise cut of samurai; breaking “My Cell” or “Raskolnikov” and techno-thrashing “King Rat”. And so on… another brutal attack putting you down to the ground.
Sound – clean but fat with mastering done by Bob Katz (Digital Domain, Florida, USA). Watch out and remember my words – this band is already big but you don’t know about it yet…”
author: Arek Lerch, rating: Demon of the Month
source: Metal Hammer, 218 8/2009 polish edition, date: Aug 2009
