:: The Faceless - Planetary Duality

The Faceless

Although flying under the radar of most, Californian based technical death metal act The Faceless certainly made an impression on the scene with their debut full-length effort ‘Akeldama’. Technically proficient, heavy and boasting enough progressive influences gave the album a little more variety from the straight out aggression of most albums of its ilk, ‘Akeldama’ was at the very least a solid debut, and a promising start to the young band’s career. Two years on and the five-piece act are back with their sophomore effort ‘Planetary Duality’, and The Faceless have definitely taken their sound another step up in the right direction. The opening track ‘Prison Born’ is a short and sharp brutal effort that amply demonstrates the band’s technical proficiency. But it’s the short burst of clean solo work, the minimal use of vocoder on the vocals in the middle and the overall general flow of the track throughout that shows just how well the band have managed to gel their eclectic mix of sounds as a cohesive whole. ‘The Ancient Covenant’ and ‘Coldly Calculated Design’ are both strong efforts where the continual change of tempos, the melodic injection of clean guitar solos and use of vocoder/clean vocals help break up the song’s continual aural death metal assault, while on ‘Xeno Christ’ and ‘Sons Of Belial’, the band’s subtle black metal influences are drawn a little more to the surface, with Cooper’s performance behind the kit and the unobtrusive keyboards only enhancing the atmospherics behind the up-front guitarists. On the guitar front, both Keene and Jones shine throughout ‘Planetary Duality’. But if there’s one track on the album where the band really gets to steal the show, it’s on ‘Legion Of The Serpent’. Complex arrangements, tight knit riffing and huge sweeping melodic passages dominate ‘Legion Of The Serpent’, making it an obvious stand out track on the album from a guitarist’s perspective. Finishing off the album is the two part title track ‘Planetary Duality’. The first part ‘Hideous Revelation’ is little more than a Meshuggah influenced instrumental piece that features the infamous interview Art Bell conducted with the mysterious former Area 51 employee, while the second part ‘A Prophecies Fruition’ is a crushing piece of technical death metal with a strong progressive influence throughout. ‘Planetary Duality’ isn’t a huge departure style wise from what The Faceless previously delivered on ‘Akeldama’. But where this album differs from their previous effort is its overall cohesiveness, tighter song writing and its greater influence of progressive elements, all of which will no doubt help establish The Faceless as one of the death metal scene’s more interesting and fresher sounding newcomers.