Vanishing Celestial Bodies is the debut four-song EP from Neurothing, a five-man band that hails from Poznan, Poland. The group describes their music as “Alt-Metal,” and the four tunes on their debut are: “Never Core,” “Macheta,” “Anomaly,” and the title track.
Although one would assume that the debut release from a Polish band would feature lyrics in their native tongue, that’s not the case here; all the singing on Vanishing Celestial Bodies is done in English by Bartek Zawadzki, who also penned the lyrics. The lyrical themes deal with violence, hatred, poverty, death, and injustice, among other things. Good luck comprehending them while listening though, as Zawadzki is indecipherable most of the time, his singing mainly consisting of hoarse, tuneless shouting. Even so, his voice does add a lot of aggression and bile to Vanishing Celestial Bodies.
True to form, aggression seems to be what Neurothing is about; this is not cheery “Flower Metal” that you put on to get in a good mood. Neurothing plays harsh, violent “mad at the world” music that fills you with anger (or angst, depending on your age) and makes you want to hit something and defy authority. Listen to this in a mosh pit for best results, and if you elbow someone in the face, don’t apologize.
Usually music like this is chaotic, jumbled noise played by hacks mad at their parents, but Neurothing has some skill. Guitarists Ryszard Hazubski and Jaroslaw Slomka crank out some good chugging riffs, and drummer Robert Roszczynski is very solid, forming a good rhythm section with bassist Wieslaw Wilga. All the songs have structure and they flow fairly well, although it’s hard to tell where one song ends and the next one begins. A couple of tracks use sampled voices and instrumental passages in places, helping them stand out a bit. If Neurothing did more of this on future releases, and Zawadzki varied his vocal delivery instead of singing every single word in the same overly-forceful tone, they’d have a good shot at separating themselves from the pack.
Vanishing Celestial Bodies is an independent release, and usually the production on independent releases isn’t the best. That’s not the case here — the production on this EP is very good, and has a lot of power and clarity. This is a good calling card for the band as they try and wedge their foot in the music industry’s door.
Will you like Neurothing? That depends. If you’re into “classy” Metal with tuneful vocals, catchy melodies, and soaring guitars, you will not like Vanishing Celestial Bodies … at all. Run away screaming. However, if you like your Metal raw, you might want to keep your ears on Neurothing.
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