Friday, May 31, 2024

Pale Cremation “EP VII: Consume”

 



As humanity becomes grossly enslaved to social media and technological advancements start to replace humans with artificial intelligence, we are going to need acts like Pale Cremation to remind us of the potential dangers that shall await humanity as all those brilliant science fiction films and books from the past become our new reality. 


On this brand new Pale Cremation release, “EP VII: Consume,” we see Matt Lasserre who is the mastermind behind Pale Cremation continue to explore more science fiction related lyrical themes, while taking the doom metal sound and adding a plethora of other elements to give the music a very dynamic sound. The early years of Pale Cremation were very much grounded in the old school doom metal world, however, with each new release you could hear the sound evolving and exploring Matt’s other musical interests. I think what really stands out about, “EP VII: Consume,” is how the lyrical themes address some very relatable topics pertaining to our society’s relationship with technology and how the digital age has impacted our lives. 


For the drum parts, Matt enlisted the help of Anders Wienerholden who proved to be a very strong addition right from the get go by making a deafening impact on the first song, “Anxiety Hivemind.” Actually, when I started listening to this new release and heard that main riff on, “Anxiety Hivemind,” I was blown away by how utterly aggressive the music sounded. I could hear a little bit of the nasty sounding riffs from Pale Cremation’s 2021 release, “Masquerade In The Violet Theatre,” but somehow the new music takes on an even more vicious and bombastic sounding approach. Throughout the entire song Matt’s guitar playing and bass playing delivers one fatal punch to the ears and even transitions into more  progressive/industrial metal sounding directions to make the musical landscape feel very entropic. 


The second track, “Nightmare Emulator,” definitely compliments the album’s science fiction theme by incorporating these haunting cinematic electronic noises. Also, the machine like pounding guitar riffs and drum parts create this surrealistic like environment where you start to feel like your mind is being completely altered by the bursts of cataclysmic distortion. I thought the song was an extremely creative instrumental track, which demonstrated Matt's willingness to push the music in new directions. 


The final song, “Goodbye to Everything,” was a clever conclusion to this nightmarish exploration into the sinister digital world that looks to control our minds and make us consume mindless content to become complete slaves to the corporate masters. If you were to ask me about the new release's sound quality, I would say that this is one of the best sounding Pale Cremation releases to date, especially the guitar sound on each of the tracks which was HEAVY as all hell. Overall, I would highly recommend this album to anyone who is a fan of monstrous sounding jams along with some really eye opening science fiction themed lyrics. I have to give credit to Matt as he continues to come up with some killer sounding releases. I'd recommend getting the kids off of that TikTok crap and start making them listen to some Pale Cremation, that way humanity might have a chance at survival when the machines take over. 



Listen to the entire release below: 





Pale Cremation Bandcamp :

https://palecremation.bandcamp.com/album/ep-vii-consume


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