Review by Sandre the Giant
The new record from New Jersey’s Replicant, ‘Infinite Mortality’, is out now through Transcending Obscurity, and looks to build on their excellent 2021 debut ‘Malignant Reality’, which laid the groundwork through oddly catchy and weird technical, dissonant death metal. This has had a lot of hype around the Twitter space (I will never call it ‘X’), and since it is a TO release I already had high expectations too.
Opener ‘Acid Mirror’ is a spiralling tech death blasterpiece, weird time signatures and howling dissonant guitar lines spin off in random directions . ‘Shrine to the Incomprehensible’ is full of uncomfortable electronic effects swirling around accomplished technical riffs and brutal vocals. The drumming on this record is amazing, moving with almost jazz-like complexity underneath those wrenching guitar tones and grinding, twanging bass tones. ‘Orgasm of Bereavement’ is not only one of 2024’s best song titles, it is also laden with jagged riffing and pounding groove as well, inducing much headbanging. ‘Reciprocal Abandonment’ sounds like atonal Suffocation breakdowns run through some kind of interdimensional filter, crushing almost-slam with detours into spacey effects. Replicant are so hard to pin down in one place, at times giving the surgical precision of a Decapitated or an Origin and others the maddening wildness of Ulcerate or early Morbid Angel. The whole record ripples with a sinewy strength and straining chaotic energy. It feels like it wants to explode into utter mind bending chaos, but it’s being gripped tightly by the band, a controlled carnage of brutality and invention
Replicant could be the modern heirs to Gorguts, such is their sleek and confident grasp of those dissonant and progressive death metal principles. Where a lot of bands who aim for Gorguts fail is in the songwriting quality; it isn’t enough to just be weird and technical, you need to make the songs really memorable too. ‘Infinite Mortality’ is a record full of memorable songs that also happen to pick and pluck at the frayed strings of your sanity at the same time. If you can wreck necks and psyches in the same record, you’ve got a winner in my book, and ‘Infinite Mortality’ does just that. Fucking hell TO, you’ve found another one!
https://www.facebook.com/replicantnj/
https://replicantnj.bandcamp.com/
https://replicantband.bandcamp.com/album/infinite-mortality
The Killchain 