A Blistering But Vast Release from Spacecorpse
- BuzzSlayers
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
An absolutely immense album release from Spacecorpse delivers an unbelievable blend of death, thrash, speed, and melodic metal, all delivered with massive intensity, whiplash approaches, and a precision in performance that is absolutely mind-blowing at times.
This is an album that's hard but also has this almost elegant and cinematic vastness in its underbelly, the entire time.
That spaciousness is always there, and it adds so much depth and layers to the already full-bodied and closed-fisted tracks, all coming at you with absolutely blistering riffs, pitch harmonics, bends, and explosive sections that even back in grind and hardcore elements.
The album is called Shapeshifter, and it doesn't waste too much time getting right to the point with its first and introductory style track called "Celestial Gateway".
So, one of the important things you need to know about this record is that it is considered to be cosmic death metal by the band themselves. So, that spaciousness and sort of sonic presence is meant to be there.
This track gives you plenty of that expansive tonality, but starts bringing in some of the intense drum work and winding guitars that glue the album.
This is a short track, and it is again meant to open you up to the rest of the record, which it does an amazing job of. This is because it starts bringing out some of the staples that you're going to hear throughout the rest of the release.
This opens things right up for the first full track, "Psychesynthesis" which is a mind-boggling piece of work that really starts to showcase the incredibly intense and thrashing approaches of the band.
The guitar tone alone gives you the sort of presence that feels like it's crashing down on you like waves.
Plenty of trudging in those riffs, deep, fat palm-muted sounds combined with shredding drums that are unbelievably alluring, simply because the drummer is almost like a machine.
The drummer is one of the most important aspects of this record, in my personal opinion. This is simply because he doesn't just add the drive, but he sort of brings this element of electricity to the tracks. I feel like the energy levels that he brings are what a lot of the rest of the band push off of, in a sense.
The vocalist is absolutely brutal, delivering different levels of screaming, throwing in melodic elements at times, but really making sure that he is also delivering this flux of brutal energy to the table.
It is at this point that you start to feel like this is like future death metal. Bringing together the classic approaches of the genre but upgrading them, in a way. The production is unreal, and there are all kinds of cool glitchy elements that are strewn about throughout the record, giving it a polished feel.
The mix of the songs is pristine. Everything is balanced insanely well, and there's not a single thing that you miss.
Meanwhile, it all comes along with explosive segments that just fog your brain.
It is very easy to tell that a lot of thought went into the production and arrangements of these pieces of music, and that these artists and musicians are masters of their instruments.
This includes vocals.
To deliver vocals that are on the level of such a robust soundscape is not an easy thing.
You've got to keep up your chops in order to do that. Just like the guitarist, drummer, bassist, and everyone else involved.
The title track, "Shapeshifter", is one that certainly showcases some of that classic death metal approach with amazing guitar work throughout the entire thing, grueling style vocals that grumble and rumble along with the deep tones of the rest of the band, and loads of those pitch harmonics and bends that sort of send you reeling into a different plane.
A lot of these songs hit like a sucker punch to the gut. This is exactly what real death metal is all about. But again, these guys do it in a way that sort of updates and upgrades certain elements of it so that everything is crisp but still massively fierce.
These songs would make the average person's brain explode. Guitarists will absolutely be obsessed, as will drummers of almost any genre, mind you.
However, fans of thrash, speed, and death metal will be blown away by the performances across this release.
Everything about this is technically advanced. And people who don't listen to a lot of thrash or death metal don't really understand what it takes to be on this level in terms of instrumental performance.
Any of these guys could release a jazz record right now if they want it to. Again, these are masters of their instruments, and when it comes to a progressive but intense death metal approach that brings in that element of cinematic vastness in its undertone, this is where it's at.
So, take a deep dive into this record as soon as you can and you'll hear exactly what I'm talking about.
Now, before I go, I do want to call out a little mention here. I was going to leave it as a surprise, but I just can't.
For all you classic metal heads out there, the last track on this record is a cover of a Metallica song. I'm not going to say which one right now, you'll have to listen to the record to see.
But let me tell you, when it comes to covering a Metallica track, these guys blew it up.
It's absolutely insane. It's a totally classic track that we've all heard and loved for years.
That's all I'm saying about that.
Go listen to this record.
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