Terminally Your Aborted Ghost
Inanimately Soundless
6.1
From the same label that recently brought you the churning, brutal death grind of Cadaveric Crematorium and Deviant, The Spew Records now brings Inanimately Soundless to the forefront, the fourth release of Massachusetts band Terminally Your Aborted Ghost and followup to 2005 release Slowly Peeling The Flesh From...
The deep, guttural vocals, the whirlwind drumming, and the straightforward staccato and palm muted brutal death riffing of “Trenchfoot” is the foundation of Terminally Your Aborted Ghost, with their sound firmly rooted in the tradition of bands ala Disgorge and Circle of Dead Children. Though not always pure, unadulterated brutality, “Minimalistic Objectivity” utilizes rhythm variance more akin to the likes of Malignancy or perhaps even as far as the groove of Misery Index to avoid the usual pitfalls of redundancy. Also, adding to their primary melee of brutal tendencies, on “Underbelly Lover” they juxtapose the more schizophrenic grindcore of Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed with earth shattering deathcore of The Red Chord over their primary brutal melee in what actually amounts to an impressive result.
Beyond their usual splay of frenetic death grind and pounding brutality, Terminally Your Aborted Ghost manages to throw in some unexpected stylistic changes. Though however well intentioned these moments may be, they’re not particularly the strength of the band by any means. The Psyopus style techcore of “Mollusk” is just flat out boringly simplistic rather than the intended jaw dropping mind fuck. Also, whoever the hell decided to insert ambient noises on “Inanimately Soundless” managed to waste everyone’s goddamned time, creating a pure waste of plastic by pulling back the intensity and ruining any sense of decimation that may have existed previously. Similarly, the laid back groove of “Disingenuous Quotation” ends the album on a bad note, coming off as a bad attempt at the slower unconventional stoner rock side of Cephalic Carnage but failing miserably. Rather than coming together and adding to the delivery of the band, these moments feel more contrived and little more than a put on.
A bit to my disappointment, Terminally Your Aborted Ghost is still very much an immature band. I was hoping for something a bit more commanding than what I got from the album, with many of the songs displaying little more than a lacking in the ability to compose anything that stands out amongst their peers. After the opening triumvirate which sets the creative bar high, the rest of the material on Inanimately Soundless floats around average with the majority of the quality ending within the first seven minutes of the album. Though songs like “Eyeshadow Whore” and “Obelisk” are undeniably well executed, they’re little more than run of the mill attempts at emulating their betters.
The absolutely flat production on Inanimately Soundless doesn't help matters either. Though the album is ungodly clear and each part has the well needed distinction it deserves, the end result is overly glossy and horrendously flat, resulting in the sound being extremely clinical. Neither was I that impressed with the low end being gutted as much as it was. In this genre it's absolutely necessary to have some punch and thickness within the mix, but there's very little to be found in the way of that here.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like the band and I absolutely love the genre, but for a band with this proficient of musicianship there needs to be more substance. Given more time to cultivate their onslaught, Terminally Your Aborted Ghost have the potential to grow into a band that can contend with any of the heavy hitters of the genre. However, the overall impression of Inanimately Soundless is one of unrealized potential with so much of the material coming across as slap dash and thrown together without much offered in the way of pure substance.
