Album of the Day: Centurian, Contra Rationem

It’s Year End List season here at the MetalSucks Mansion, which means we’ve been collecting not only staff lists, but also lists from various notable musicians from across the metalsphere. Of course it’s always a lot of fun to see who dug what, but the best part of looking at all these lists is getting great recommendations for killer albums that we may have otherwise missed this year.

Case in point: Centurian’s Contra Rationem, which has been out since February, but which I didn’t actually get around to checking out ’til yesterday, when I spotted it on the list of a certain founding member of a certain legendary death metal band. (This despite The Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad asserting that Centurian are one of the best death metal bands of all time. I’m a fool, I know.)

How to best describe this album? Y’know how people always describe shit as being something else you already know, but with the aid of some illegal drug? E.g., “It’s Napalm Death on steroids!”, “It’s Deicide on acid!”, etc.? Well, Centurian’s Contra Rationem is Hate Eternal on elastic. (Incidentally, Centurian and Hate Eternal both released their debut full-lengths in 1999.Now, yes, I am of course aware that there’s currently no drug known as “elastic” (but there should be… get on that, enterprising young scientists). But that’s really the best way I can think to describe it: Hate Eternal-style death metal filtered through rubber bands.

And if that doesn’t make you wanna listen to it, remember that someone far cooler than I thinks it’s awesome. So, yeah.

Contra Rationem is out now on Listenable. Stream it below, or just go ahead and buy it here — it’s totally worth it.