Parricide

"Ill-Treat"
(Mercenary Music)

What do you get when you combine Napalm-like aggression, images of dread painted black by indecipherable vocals and played by beings with unpronounceable names? Right, another dissident aggressor from the still developing but fast approaching Polish Death scene. In fact, Parricide's history is one of great length, having originated in the formative years of Eastern-Euro Death with the likes of revered countrymen Vader, and at the time when the scene was taking its first squinty-eyed peer from the abyss. While there've been denizens who've solidified themselves as clear leaders of the field - the Vader's, Deicide's, Hypocrisy's, and the many new level technical ascenders, there are far less who've survived the ultimate weeding of the weak, instead turning to the considerably friendlier climes under the autumn moon languishing somewhere between blood and tears. Out of spite Parricide's evidently dropped the song lyrics in tribute to the short-lived Pawel Brozek, ex-lyricist, current shitlist card carrier, and with him, any semblance of a fighting chance to know what the Hell's going on here. Musically speaking, as if there were another way, the riffs are powerful and primordial, riding the well worn trailways of programmatically fast sounding beats through the lifeless remains previously footed by the early Bolt Throwers, Deaths, and Cannibals, scaling technically taut and harmonic tradeoffs, slightly, but not severely, offsetting a blistering but bounded frame that's often devoid of directionality. "Slavers Of Infirmity" and "One Step To Deviation," or was it "Deranged," offer plenty of progressive intent and stand forth as highlights among an exceptionally low-tuned bottom fed production, but save for their inspired and individualistic closing cover of the Corpse-classic "Hammer Smashed Face," it's a too traveled path of least resistance making for an overall tiresome listen. The blinding power and the courageousness behind the skillful brutality will rouse the ire of even the slightest skeptic, without question; and where velocity and virtuosity meet and exchange knowing winks, Parricide remains a man among men. But through the course of things, redundancy sets in often enough to beg the question of whether the band really did leave it all on the table or if "Ill-Treat" suffers an insecurity felt through the departure of the many previous inactives then they'd care to let on.

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