Album Review: Dying Fetus’ Wrong One to Fuck With
It’s been five years since the release of Reign Supreme, Dying Fetus’ last album of original material. But to hear their latest offering, Wrong One to Fuck With, you’d think no time has passed at all. The band’s eighth album can be differentiated from its predecessors in only two ways: it is the first of Dying Fetus’ full-length releases to bear the less-legible of their two logo designs, and it is the first Dying Fetus full-length release to feature more than nine songs.
Otherwise, Wrong One to Fuck With is business as usual for Dying Fetus: vertigo-inducing tech deedilly-doo that makes it sound like John Gallagher’s fretboard is a minefield with lumbering, neolithic riffs sure to ignite your inner single-celled organisms’ innate desire to destroy (the track “Reveling in the Abyss” is especially strong in this regard). That may sound like a backhanded compliment, but it’s not; what Dying Fetus lack in creative adventurousness, they make up for in dependability. The band is still at their best when indulging their grooviest instincts, as they do on tracks like “Die with Integrity” and “Weaken the Structure,” but there isn’t a lousy song on Wrong One to Fuck With.
Still, it says something that the album’s strongest song is also the only one which dares to mess, however briefly, with the Fetus formula. The title track — the aforementioned tenth, and closing, song — has what is not only the album’s best riff, but the one most likely to cause involuntary windmilling. But it’s the first part of the song, which lasts less than forty seconds, which is the most interesting: it’s basically “Caught in a Mosh” by way of Exhorder, except that drummer Trey Williams is playing an unusual pattern which approximates the speed-ramping beats one usually associates with electronic music. It should go without saying that I’m not suggesting Dying Fetus attempt some kind of Illud Divinum Insanus in the future… but it is remarkable how far just a little change will take you.
Dying Fetus’ Wrong One to Fuck With comes out June 23 on Relapse. You can stream the track “Die with Integrity” here and pre-order the album here. Listen to our interview with Dying Fetus drummer Trey Williams on The MetalSucks Podcast here.
