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Despara is a tough call. It would be easy to just write a bio for ....Colorado....’s Cryogen and try to pass it off as a review, and to be fair and
honest, this four-track EP doesn’t suck in the least. There are acrobatic
riffs, cool drum fills, and tastefully melodic solos at every turn, and reminds
me a whole lot of how Thine Eyes Bleed started out, especially where the vocal delivery (not the
exact tone) is concerned. The music falls in that weird spot of catchier thrash
mixed with more straightforward death metal, but of the tightly-picked,
precision staccato variety. “Mirror Entropy” throws in a few
orchestral/classical elements into the mix with warbled, shaky results, and the
bass drumming follows the riffs flawlessly on a few occasions during somewhat
technical parts, without excessively overpowering the guitars. The technique
still works well if it’s done right, so it works really well here, and adds to
the rather emotionless overall vibe without flattening anything out under a
wall of percussion.
Cryogen have added a few dynamic
elements that further brings Anata or Mithras to mind, especially on the excellent “Divine
Hallucination,” but they still could use a little more individuality integrated
into their sound. These guys have a huge reserve of technical ability, and this
EP shows some nice growth, but from a casual standpoint Despara wasn’t a task to sit through either. If they can come up
with a new full-length as high in quality as closing labyrinth “Agnosis,” and
show off a little more as far as who they are as songwriters, then it could be
very interesting to hear the results in the hopefully not-so-distant future.
Despara is now streaming in its entirety on our page, so take a listen and tell us what you think. You can also leave 'lashes' about the above review on the
metalreview.com site!
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