Paranoid Fantasy - Humanity Disgrace
If one is looking for late 90s death metal in the vein of “Domination” Morbid Angel or “Here In After” by Immolation, then Algeria’s Paranoid Fantasy is worth listening to. Their 2nd EP “Humanity Disgrace” is brief, but delivers five tracks of hard hitting cavernous death metal. Tracks like ‘Amputation’ and ‘Metamorphosis Degeneration’ are fast with ugly growls, churning riffs, stop and go machine gun drumming, and overall a certain grace to brutal death metal technicality that made the mentioned albums earlier such a hit with a lot of fans. While Paranoid Fantasy certainly pay homage to those works with their music, the only downside is that a lot of tracks kind of blend together, as they do on a lot of death metal albums that tend to focus on guitars, vocals, bass, and drums only with little room for interludes or progressive elements.
Other tracks have more groove injected into them like ‘Creature With No Purpose,’ which features a lot more stop n’ go action, but some of the furious riffing is pretty impressive, and there are even some thrashy, stand out solos too. ‘Noname’ even brings some more of the thrash elements with some of the riffs, adding heaps of melody and taking Paranoid Fantasy a notch above ‘average death metal band.’ If the first half of the album didn’t really capture listeners, at least these last 2 tracks will. The haunting closing guitar melodies will stick in the head for days, having some much darker tones that don’t go all out, but add to the whole ‘music from the pits of hell’ sound that a lot of old school death metal bands like Helslave go with. While repetitive, it does match the engaging groove that is heard on ‘Creature…’
Unfortunately, there isn’t quite enough on the EP to really get a full sense of what Paranoid Fantasy’s true direction is but is certainly feels like a ‘cleaner sounding old school death metal’ vibe. Both showing fast hitting and some slower, darker moments that certainly spell doom on the ears, those whole like a chugging death metal album with no stops along the way are going to enjoy “Humanity Disgrace” and should look forward to the day these guys put out a full length album.
3 / 5 STARS
Other tracks have more groove injected into them like ‘Creature With No Purpose,’ which features a lot more stop n’ go action, but some of the furious riffing is pretty impressive, and there are even some thrashy, stand out solos too. ‘Noname’ even brings some more of the thrash elements with some of the riffs, adding heaps of melody and taking Paranoid Fantasy a notch above ‘average death metal band.’ If the first half of the album didn’t really capture listeners, at least these last 2 tracks will. The haunting closing guitar melodies will stick in the head for days, having some much darker tones that don’t go all out, but add to the whole ‘music from the pits of hell’ sound that a lot of old school death metal bands like Helslave go with. While repetitive, it does match the engaging groove that is heard on ‘Creature…’
Unfortunately, there isn’t quite enough on the EP to really get a full sense of what Paranoid Fantasy’s true direction is but is certainly feels like a ‘cleaner sounding old school death metal’ vibe. Both showing fast hitting and some slower, darker moments that certainly spell doom on the ears, those whole like a chugging death metal album with no stops along the way are going to enjoy “Humanity Disgrace” and should look forward to the day these guys put out a full length album.
3 / 5 STARS
1. Amputation
2. Eden Flames
3. Metamorphosis Degeneration
4. Creature With No Purpose
5. Noname
2. Eden Flames
3. Metamorphosis Degeneration
4. Creature With No Purpose
5. Noname
