Thy Final Pain
Epitaph
4.8
"A massive rhythmic death metal penetration created in the depths of two minds insane, ready to rule the world of metal once and for all, shattering the foundation of earth. Time for retaliation is now! Enter the crypts of insanity!"
And.....
"The temptation of self-realisation in music soon led the murderes of sanity to their one and only obsession: the possession of making death metal, in yet new but sometimes still oldschool spheres of expression. The goal of Thy Final Pain is to rule the world of metal - in life and death. Music is the source and the fuel of a hate filled soul that's wandering in darkness."
From their own mouths, from their own site, typos, awkward poetry, and all. This German duo was once two-fourths of another German death outfit called Debauchery. Debauchery was Six Feet Under worship to an embarrassing degree. Thy Final Pain is just as dreadlocked and dumbed-down, and can be taken seriously only if you think that "singers" like Chris Barnes and Max Cavalera are mad lyrical geniuses. And if you think that Thy Final Pain is a kickass band name, well then you're also definitely in the right place. I must say that after reading the above italicized, I figured these guys for a good throat slicing and I, left for a human Pez dispenser. But unfortunately I am intact. That's tall talk up there, and they better be able to back that up down here, or else all is reduced to comedy. Sadly, it has become just that, a monologue. These "two minds" are not really all that "insane". Like I kinda said earlier, if Soulfly drives you batty, then this right here just might "rule the world of metal" for you, or possibly "shatter the foundation of earth". If anybody out there actually owns a "hate filled soul" for which this album is the "fuel", and as a result that soul is "wandering in darkness", please let me know. Please. I have some other records I'd like to play for you that will completely flip your fuckin' wig. Epitaph, besides being the name of one hundred other albums, is fifty-one minutes of downtuned and mid-tempo neanderthal styled DM, with a drum machine I might add. This fake drumming is an important detail because there's a degree of lifelessness felt here that the machine takes the blame for. Whatever device they're using, it sounds pretty Casio up against their decent guitar tones. I can't get on them too much for not being able to afford or obtain an alternative to their current drum programming method, it doesn't come cheap. I can't even get on them full-force for programming them to an underwhelming degree, since the real culprits here are the tightly played, yet blockheaded riffs that the rhythm section must abide by. But I can get on them entirely for writing an album that pretty much trudges along at the same pace for the better part of an hour, and during that time uses lyrics that actually make me feel less intelligent for having sat through them. There's really only one significant break in the monotony, and that's on the eighth track, "Thy Final Pain", where they actually bring the tempo to an anxious gallop as if they had poured over with excitement like little children to have finally written the song that would bear the name of their new band and tempt the world to enter their "crypts of insanity" or something. Whatever. It's too late and too little. I would have highly recommended forcing the pace more often, and if that pace absolutely had to appear that one time only, then TFP should have thrown it into the lineup about a third of the way through, instead of during that last lap, to sidestep redundancy and dozing off. To be completely brutally honest though, if you're a nit-picky headbanger, such as I, then hearing the impotent cookie monster vocal repeat the words "Die for revenge/Feel the pain/Smell the stench of hate" over and over again will surely have you rolling, with laughter, and not in your grave as was intended, no matter how many tempo jumps or time-signature switch-ups (to which there is absolutely zero). All lyrical content on this album will not pass the eighth grade. Musicality has a chance if it attends summer (slaughter) school. Therefore, Thy Final Pain will not be graduating.
Death is certain (with most everything else). Life is not (usually). However, with Epitaph, you're assured a healthy return.
