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Review: Pyrrhon - Fever Kingdoms
Pyrrhon
www.myspace.com/pyrrhonnyc
Fever Kingdoms

Label: The Path Less Traveled Records
Year released: 2010
Duration: 21:35
Tracks: 5
Genre: Death Metal

Rating:
4/5


Review online: October 20, 2010
Reviewed by: Christopher Foley
Readers' Rating
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Rated 3/5 (60%) (10 Votes)
Review

Pyrrhon are a U.S. band being billed as technical death metal. Now those three words alone could be enough to scare people off. Make no mistake I have a penchant for a few of the technical bands, particularly the stuff coming out around the early 90's. These days though you can normally divide the technical bands into two categories, you have the Suffocation school of brutal blasturbation – although it has spawned a few winners such as early Decrepit Birth, or to some extent Hour of Penance and Fleshgod Apocalypse. Then you have the insane musicianship of acts such as Necrophagist that feature a ridiculous amount of widly-didly guitar work which is slowly wearing thinner and thinner on me. Anyway, getting back on track and to the point I've got to say that Pyrrhon break the mold to an extent, as these guys are a far cry away from the two schools mentioned before.

I've found these guys to be very Morbid Angel-sounding although with the mindset of Ron Jarzombek and/or some of the guys from Atheist. Which is cool, and I think these guys could end up carving out their own niche provided they stick to their guns displayed on this their Fever Kingdoms EP.

The EP kicks off with "King of All Tears" which is straight out of glory-era Morbid Angel and probably the best cut on here, the vocals have David Vincent written all over them which is cool to hear. The riffs are cool and the drum work is furious of course, featuring blasting but never overbearing. The next track "Biblioclast Waltz" shows more of their technical side, with the song reminiscent of maybe a more immediate Opeth – but don't let that put you off.

Rounding off the rest of the EP we have the largely mid-paced "God's Parabola" which displays some quality ideas. "Baudelaire" is another of the quicker numbers and certainly reminds of the old guard of technical death metal. As well as closer "Pascal's Wager" which again is more quality death metal, I'd say just about equal parts tech and old school DM.

These guys are one of the better examples of how technical death metal should be played and I only hope this is the start of a bright career for Pyrrhon. Their ideas are good and well placed, and whilst not the most original, they mesh in together very well and as aforementioned their technicality never overbears, even the guitar solos are few and far between. If you ever thought this genre was all about sweep picking, ridiculous time signatures, and blasturbation I urge you to check these guys out. This is how it's done, and for once there is no way this could be confused with deathcore.

More about Pyrrhon...
Review: An Excellent Servant but a Terrible Master (reviewed by Christopher Foley)
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