Discern
To Praise With Persecution
5.1
Discern is essentially a one-man project headed by multi-instrumentalist Billy Fraser. He started the project in 1997 and released an EP shortly after in 1998, but has remained silent in the 9 years leading up to his debut full-length, To Praise With Persecution. I'd say the dude must smoke a lot of grass because a decade between albums is a long time when you are the only person in the band, but alas, the man is a steadfast Christian so he's just a slow worker I guess.
The 11 tracks herein run about 39 minutes and span a fairly wide range of deathly influences, but mostly Fraser sticks with a sound somewhere between Morbid Angel and Death, though not in the same league in terms of writing. There are a lot of frenzied Azagthoth-style solos strewn throughout the album (check out "The Annointing"), but some more bluesy ("Second Death Honesty") and proggy, Schuldiner-esque (like the intro dedicated to Chuck himself) soloing creeps into the mix as well.
Aside from these interesting, if mostly retread, leads and the occasional jazzy break ("I Sacrifice"), the majority of To Praise With Persecution is just...boring. It could be the over reliance on chunky, mid-paced death riffing or the muddy recording or the monotonous deep bellows or...you get the idea. There are some nuggets of goodness to be found within Discern's arsenal, but on the whole this simply isn't compelling stuff.
