ALBUMS THAT WILL F*CK YOUR FACE OFF IN 2012: WORMED, TBA
Wormed
TBA
Label – Willowtip
Release date – TBA
Wormed are a part of an elite cabal of metal bands that release a smattering of demos and EPs, follow them with one staggering full-length, then drop the mic and head home (see also: Weakling, Demilich, Repulsion). But if a certain band whose name rhymes with Shmynic reminds us of anything, it’s that it’s entirely possible for your band to reconvene and pick up where you left off (or if you’re a band that rhymes with Shmynic — I’m talking about Cynic here — you pick up as if you’d been making albums all along and have your second record sound like an immaculately evolved version of your original self). And although Wormed haven’t been gone as long as the previously mentioned bands, they haven’t put out a full-length since 2003‘s Planisphaerium, a century and a half in internet time. But that album was both of and incredibly ahead of its time, so it’s highly improbable that their upcoming second offering won’t be at least interesting, if not a full-on sci-fi tech-death masterpiece.
Granted, they sort of cheated by dropping the “Quasineutrality” single on us almost two years ago. That sounded like a logical extension of Planisphaerium’s busy-fingered, hairpin riffing; colossal grooves; and the occasional, brilliantly-timed splashes of color. But as even that recedes deeper into the past, the band somehow don’t sound passé, even though aspects of their sound — hyper-technical death metal and slam-heavy brutal DM, especially — have fallen out of favor. Unlike Dr. Dre or 2008 Axl Rose, Wormed aren’t meticulously working on something that would have sounded dated seven years ago, but are simultaneously far enough ahead of and with the curve that whatever time their album arrives will be a good one. Given trend hoppers’ on-and-off relationship with death metal, that’s not a small thing to pull off.
Since the band have been gone long enough that new jacks like (the excellent) Gigan are biting their sci-fi tech-death style, it’ll be interesting to hear how much they’ve altered what they do and how much they decide to stick with. Though the majority of sci-fi themes seem to be in the song titles (“Pulses in Rhombus Forms”… sure) and lyrics (which, as MetalSucks’ Minister of Awesome Vince Neilstein pointed out, don’t really thematically matter, seeing as they’re completely unintelligible), it really does sound like death metal made by aliens, seeing as it has all the grime and filth of our brutal death metal with better-evolved flourishes, giving us a glimpse of how awesome death metal could be if we tapped into previously unknown parts of ourselves in addition to, you know, trying harder. To some, their next album will be another structureless mishmash of riffs and grooves with animalistic vocals. To others (and those that matter), it’ll most likely be some next-level shit.
-SO
