Style: technical death metal, progressive death metal, “avant-garde” metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Death, The World Is Quiet Here
Country: international
Release date: 9 January 2025
The internet can be a wonderful place to meet new friends (like my Subway peeps), learn things from the vast libraries and array of knowledge, and collaborate with people around the globe. The internet is also a horrible cesspit of evil misinformation and porn; social media and especially short-form content are ruining attention spans of children and adults across the world; and Chat-GPT is dystopian (I won’t field any disagreements). Implant Soul met online and decided to collab, the project formed by a couple Ukrainian musicians and an Indonesian musician with inspiration from a Norwegian one. Artefact is the resulting album and proof not every internet collaboration is a beautiful thing.
Self-described on Bandcamp as “avant-garde METAL,” Implant Soul are definitely not that, playing a slightly proggy take on technical death metal similar in style to mid-era Death. Except for occasional herky-jerky trumpet solos (which are a really cool replacement for the traditional guitar solo), the only avant-garde aspect of Artefact is the production—which verges from unbearably loud to too quiet from track to track. The problem is especially noticable with regards to the godawful clean vocals of Eugene Robinson (who came up with the original idea of Implant Soul) on “Ecstasy of Flame” and “Like Smoke,” the first two tracks written for Artefact. His wails and “oohs” sound spookily similar to a cat in heat and are woefully obnoxious. Moreover, they’re produced incredibly loudly over the top of the instrumentation—so loudly, in fact, that they often clip. His “singing” absolutely murders the two tracks he vocalizes over, and, in an instant, 2/7 of the album is rendered unlistenable.
Since Artefact is death metal, Implant Soul worship the almighty riff, naturally. Most of the release is a brisk tempo on the slower end of tech death, and the guitar performances of Ivan Lozovsky are agile but not virtuosic. As mentioned, the trumpet solos stand out far more than any guitar parts, but bassist Tata Early does a sweet job at holding down the lower end, even taking the lead on some strong riffs like at the end of “The Infernal Crux.” Not many other lead moments really stick out from any of the instrumentalists, the performances just slightly better than your average death metal release, mostly because they add that tinge of Death-y prog. The final permanent member, drummer Dmitriy Kim, mostly just blasts without remorse for the most part; if he used a tad more finesse and varied up his rhythms more, I think that Artefact would be stronger.
Graciously, the other five tracks without Robinson demand much more attention; the other clean vocal performances are much more tolerable. The latter half of “The Infernal Crux” features ominous chanting, and “Drawn to the Flame” boasts a stellar performance from Kyle Thomas of Exhorder fame—gritty but powerful with a tone mixing heavy metal swagger and the rugged edge of good thrash cleans. Each track (except the two with Robinson, whyyyyy) has a different guest vocalist, and they set the tone for each track. However, this structure does lead to a feeling of disjointedness across Artefact, and the album almost comes across as a label-sampler promo rather than a coherent release from a single band. I appreciate that each vocalist gets a time to shine, but I wish that the compositional style didn’t change so drastically from song to song. Closer “Binded by Tendrils” even verges on dissodeath, fitting since Will Smith (ex-Artifical Brain, Afterbirth) takes the mic.
Tech death is my jam, but unfortunately not every album is gonna be a heavy hitter, and Implant Soul shoot themselves in the foot with several of their more, ahem, “avant-garde” choices. Implant Soul need significantly more focus for a follow-up because although they have talent, their songwriting, album structuring, and production are a barrier between wanting to listen and yet another death metal album in the discard pile. I guess that’s what paying for features to center your entire album around does for you instead of focusing on your own sound.
Recommended tracks: Drawn to the Flame, Binded by Tendrils
You may also like: Overtoun, Replacire, Moral Collapse
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: independent
Implant Soul is:
– Tata Early (bass)
– Dmitriy Kim (drums)
– Ivan Lozovsky (guitars)
