Album of the Day: Animosity’s Animal
Long-winded concept albums are a dime a dozen these days, and there are even more albums that seem to have little to no cohesion between their music, lyrics, and artistic themes. Animosity’s Animal is the rare in-between specimen — it’s an album that, while not blatantly conceptual, still stays true to its philosophical and aesthetic content. Animal is a multi-faceted, snarling portrait of a beast, and an oft-overlooked gem that’s far more unique than people give it credit for.
Animal allows listeners to draw parallels between the brutal, um, animal elements of the music, and the bleak societal critique invoked by the band, headed by Leo Miller’s distinctive, earth-shaking screams. It’s easy to equate the iniquity of the Catholic church’s deceptive, pedophilic manipulation with the twisting brutality of “Bombs Over Rome”; Miller’s rage-filled words feel like a great airborne predator inevitably bearing down on the institution as a whole. His fervent political roaring on “Terrorstorm” is deeply and distinctively primal.
The best part about Animal is that it doesn’t stick to one creature in particular. It’s wild, and it truly sounds like nothing else. The all-encompassing distortion, the vocal style, and the piercing guitar lines are unique to Animosity and Animosity alone, a bizarre blend of grindcore, death metal, and deathcore. Animal encompasses the speed of these genres with the heaviness and cohesion of others, and the combination of elements makes Animosity unparalleled and unclassifiable. Like its brilliant album art, Animal morphs back and forth between different feral forms. The aforementioned ripping opener, “Terrorstorm” comes at you like a savage, tightly wound tiger, while whirlwind closer “A Passionate Journey” invokes the sludgy, chaotic static of a lumbering mammoth.
Though the creators of Animal disbanded soon after the album’s conception, it’s a fitting swan song, marking the band as one of the few fresh sounds in the modern extreme metal scene. It’s an innovative, daring release that maintains its heaviness and cohesion throughout. It has no technical masturbation, no half-tempo breakdowns, no bullshit; just savage, pure metal. Appreciate the beast.
