Sleep Terror
Probing Tranquility
8.3
I’ll be honest, I’ve been waiting for Probing Tranquility to roll through the doors at Metal Review for a good while now, anyone who’s spent a little time rabidly searching the web for the next tech death monolith more than likely shares my sentiments. For any of you even mildly acquainted with the instrumental phenomena of Sleep Terror, it should come as no surprise to find that I consider this particular band to be amongst the high ranking elites of tech death.
For those of you not familiar with Luke Jaeger’s work, the man is the unholy prodigy of Satan himself, second to none other than the infamous Muhammed Suicmez. And while the latter has oftentimes been critizied for coming off as terribly soulless and overly calculated, Luke actually presents a more dynamic, and varied onslaught to tech death than almost any of his peers. In fact, in a lot of ways his lead style sounds a whole shit load like Necrophagist, but anyone with a trained enough ear can hear the distinctive difference in artistic flair albeit they both have the same basic stylistic approach. Rather than having a whole fucking bunch of shit happening at once, the guitar lines focus on one primary style before frenetically swapping to a whole other plan of attack whether it be the heavily Atheist and Cynic influenced jazz experimentation sprinkled throughout each song, or the unrelentingly heavy and complex Decrepit Birth or Severed Savior style rhythms that routinely bludgeon the listener within an absolutely jaw dropping display of skill. Rather than remain fixated on a singular approach, somewhat similar to Spawn of Possession is the apparent Sleep Terror mantra to constantly throw the listener off by schizophrednic changes of pace the exact moment you feel you’re about to grasp exactly what’s going on. Add to this a heavy sense of progressive experimentation and the occasional with the occasional what the fuck moment, we have an album that’s as outlandishly interesting as it is immeasurably brutal.
My only real complaint concerning Probing Tranquility is the lack of a solid and consistent lineup to back the man up. Beyond that, the sound is refreshingly clear, inhumanly precise, and tighter than a virgin's twat. The only real let down is the conspicuous absence of a bassist and a flesh and blood drummer on this one. While the drum parts are wonderfully placed and tastefully executed, they can oftentimes border on the annoyingly paper thin side of things. The last little point of critique is while there is an over abundant amount of dynamic variation and stylistic shifts throughout the songs themselves, while none of the material bleeds together per se, Probing Tranquility can sometimes cut very close to the formulaic side of things.
I can assure you that how you’ll feel about Sleep Terror depends directly on how you like your death metal, if intricate rhytms and unbelievably technical lead work appeals to you, chances are you should be ashamed for not already owning this. How Sleep Terror haven’t found themselves on Neurotic Records is absolutely beyond me; Sleep Terror is a force unto itself, that any fan of the genre should watch avidly close.
