Genre: Death Metal | Label: MindtGash
Location: Edmonton, Alberta| Listen: Bandcamp
Edmonton, Alberta is a desolate wasteland located in the Canadian prairies, farther north than all other major cities in Canada. It’s a working class city that has produced a lot of music throughout the decades, and there have been many notable metal acts that call Edmonton home, as I do myself. Disciples of Power were one of the first metal bands to make their mark from this city, and rightfully so. Their first three albums are all crucial listening for any technical thrash or death metal fans as far as I’m concerned, and deserve to be talked about when it comes to Canadian metal. However, in the case of 1996’s “Mechanikill,” I feel like the band lost focus and I really just can’t get into this record.
Disciples of Power initially started as a technical thrash band, but started to veer towards death metal as the 90’s began with their next two albums. “Mechanikill” steers itself in a different direction by implementing an almost progressive like feel to it. There are certainly a lot more mellow, atmospheric, and melodic parts throughout this album than previous Disciples of Power material. What makes this frustrating is that it’s just not executed very well in terms of songwriting. The songs often feel like they’re building up to something, but they just never get to that point of break-neck speed metal. As soon as they build a part up, they do some start/stop stuff into some other part that feels unrelated and disconnected to what just happened previously. This happens over and over in a linear progression with many of these songs, and the band never really comes back to any parts for any sense of coherence. Furthermore, a lot of these parts feel like I’m listening to someone just shredding over top of kind of generic moods and atmospheres. Don’t get me wrong, mainman Hart Bachmier is an incredibly talented guitarist, and his solos are pretty amazing, but some of the stuff that he’s playing over just feels like it’s there for him to play over, rather than being a powerful part unto itself. He utilizes tons of moods and effects to give these parts some identity, but I still fail to latch onto any even after repeated listens.
This album is over an hour long, and it’s just so unfocused. Bachmier seemed to really have the reigns on this album in terms of writing and playing, and I feel that may have been detrimental to the songwriting process. Perhaps if they had worked on this more as a band, or with a different producer at the helm, these songs could be worked into something that has a sense of purpose. As far as I’m concerned, a lot of the material here just feels like an excuse for someone to show off their technical prowess. Even in the first track, “Wings of Suicide,” there’s these random noodling parts that seemingly come out of nowhere, and it’s just the bass and guitars doing some things in unison. The title track gets into this territory, and by this point in the record, it’s a tired routine that desperately needs some energetic riffs. “Symphonic Animosity” is even worse, and doesn’t even get off the runway. Quite honestly, the only memorable part of this record occurs at about 4:30 in “Inside (Circles of Sickness)”, as that lead melody is really catchy and will surely satisfy any heavy metal fan.
Not everything is bad about this record – Dean Relf’s drumming is phenomenal as always, and the way this record was put together is impressive when considering all the different kind moods and effects that are going on here. But this kind of thing can’t save the overly drawn out and linear songwriting, and it just doesn’t give me that death/thrash goodness that their previous releases did. Funny enough, I think bands like Blood Incantation have successfully done what “Mechanikill” tries to do – it employs riff after riff in a linear fashion, but each riff develops in some logical sense, and it also has all the crazy solos and atmospheric parts that could easily draw comparison to this weird little Canadian metal album. I know some of my older friends who grew up with Disciples of Power will disagree with my take on this album greatly, but as far as I’m concerned, this is just a frustrating album to listen to, and you’re much better off with their first three albums.
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