Breeding Chaos - Distant Planets

Breeding Chaos were formed out of France in 2020 and just a year ago put out their debut EP. This four piece Melodeath group finally have unleashed their full length debut “Distant Planets” that is a tight 30 minutes of guitar focused music, leaning more on the late 90s style of groups like Soilwork and Amon Amarth for a raucous, but enjoyable listen with a few surprises sprinkled in between. While a lot of the modern Melodeath bands out there give a huge focus on that harsh/ clean vocal trade off along with a lot of progressive keyboards, Breeding Chaos like to keep a bit of an abrasive sound to their work, letting the guitars from Jerome and Bruno trade off in harmony but always delivering that catchy chug while the bass from Malo is actually audible for once and the drums despite their rather simple ‘clack’ and lack of snare/ percussive thunder from Lucas still retain a lot of power in the mix. It is seems that the band really wanted to make instrumentation a focus here, making it clear from the opening instrumental which will remind listeners a bit of In Flames for the attractive acoustic work.

The more ‘Death Metal’ style tracks like ‘Magnetic Interactions’ have that heavy riff focus drawing a bit from Hypocrisy but mostly Soilwork without the Thrash elements. The pace is rather simple and mid as it chugs along, but like any decent Melodeath group, the band tries to make the music heavy as well as accessible. The vocals are a bit rough and sometimes buried as everything tries to compete to be heard, but it has the right guttural tone to it much like how Amon Amarth is and not quite as shrieking as Hypocrisy. Other tracks like ‘Accretion Rates’ are more chug and solo focused with a more simple approach and less flair when it comes to technical work and less showcase of the bass like the earlier tracks, but there are still plenty of headbanging moments. The band switches things up a bit when it comes to their interludes like ‘Pillars of Creation.’ Spacey, synthy, and even adding in what sounds like xylophone, it brings out the sci-fi meets eastern tones of the album art and while random, serves as a break from the Death Metal side of things. After this the 2nd half of the album picks things up a bit, leaning almost more towards the likes of Beyond Creation when it comes to some of the riffs and bass work on a song like ‘Birth of the Abyss.’ The vocals are a bit sparse as the solos and drumming have more of a say here, but it stands out as Breeding Chaos try to make their own sound and less of following the big names like Amon Amarth, but even with its more groove oriented swagger, it still sounds like it leans towards a cleaner sounding Bloodbath.

‘Stone Cross’ is probably the best marriage of Tech Death meets Melodeath as the band delivers some of its faster riffs and biting groove while retaining that foot stomping rhythm that makes Melodeath chuggers so much fun to listen to with their anthemic qualities (think “Clayman” In Flames era). While a lot of it is repetitive in some of the riff choices, it twists and turns here and there to keep fans from being bored. Then the closing keyboard lull of ‘Bitter Closer’ has its dramatic sweeping moments, but its grandiosity and building tones seem more like it should have opened the album rather than closed it, leaving the more lulling middle interlude to be a better option to close the album. Still, despite being riff heavy, Breeding Chaos have those nods to showcase their potential for more progressive options and still have a strong debut with “Distant Planets.” The start of a possible set of concepts that could blow up into something big, those who like their Death Metal feet stomping rhythmic with tons of bass but quite dirty sounding like some downtempo bands out there will find this Melodeath act a very fun listen if they don’t mind the lack of clean vocals.

3.5 / 5 STARS