Antropofago - A Propensity For Violence… Cruelty Enslavement

Third full length from the French death metalers. Antropofago is a band active since 2010 and so far they’re serving the technical side of death metal enriched with a lot of progressive elements. Technical riffs, “flirting” with the term “leads”, succeeding more basic ones under a barrage of blastbeats and death metal beats in general combined together. Tight and loud bass guitar, having a special place in the mix, sometimes following the guitar themes and others just playing along in different scales and manners, taking the outcome to more progressive landscapes. The vocals are following the guttural/shriek succession protocol. Heavy gutturals mostly, giving their place to black metal shrieks in a question-answer mode.

"A Propensity For Violence… Cruelty Enslavement" consists of 9 tracks and a cover on Machine head’s, ‘Davidian’. Leaving the cover aside (which to be honest was a bit fail) I’d say that Antropofago’s music without being bad, it is not the one to make you untie your bun and start headbanging. They have many good elements in their music but on the same time, their music lacks cohesiveness. After a couple of spins, it kind of leaves you the feel that some riffs were simply chosen to make the tracks bigger in length or to impress. The huge progressive interleave in 'Antinferno' or the 20 sec thrash burst in 'Wrap Of Flesh' (around 1:30) are good examples of what mentioned above. This takes away a lot of momentum which is so much needed. Especially in the type of death metal they want to play.

There’s no doubt that Antropofago are exquisite players. My guess is that if they relax a bit in their song writing and let it come more natural, it will sound a lot better. A lot more brutal and definitely a lot more intact. There are definitely some great riffs here but their will to “Show Skill’’ comes first and kind of buries them under. The cover track on Machine Head kind of fell under the same bus. 'Davidian' is considered by many a 10/10 song. Trying to change something that is already perfect, has a big chance it might cause a serious backfire. Changing the drum beats of the main verse from groove to blast beat, playing it faster and in general giving it a death metal approach, I wouldn’t say it worked in favor of the track but kind of the exact opposite!

Leaving that aside, the production is crystal clear. The type needed for this sort of death metal. Everything can be heard loud and clear leaving the final result super shinny and polished. Wouldn’t mind for a bit roughness in the final master. It would take a lot of the super compressed feel (especially the drum machine) that stays in the tip of the tongue away. Summing up I’d say that taking out the exaggerations, "A Propensity For Violence… Cruelty Enslavement" is an album, fans of the progressiveness in death metal might find interesting elements in. Try it out and see for yourselves.

2 / 5 STARS 

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1. Antinferno
2. Transhumanism (A Propensity For Violence)
3. Descent
4. Spawn The Teratism
5. Davidian (cover Machine Head)
6. Wrap Of Flesh
7. The Eyewitness
8. The Protagonist
9. Horror Prevails
10. Misanthropic Whispers