The Faceless - In Becoming a Ghost

Coming 5 years after their latest album, the non-uniquely conceptual but musically elevated Authotheism, which came as another in a string of significant improvements upon previous works, In Becoming a Ghost is symptomatic of the confusing tumult that has plagued the band’s recent years, and it plays as such.

Following a number of line-up changes, touring fiascoes, and other logistical disasters, In Becoming a Ghost is an uneasy return to the studio, still full of the technicality and proggy dynamic changes The Faceless are known and loved for. This album, though, just seems so much like the huge essay/report you’d been assigned to do for weeks and started and finished in an energy drink-driven craze the night before because you had too much shit going on. No proofreading, no rereading over it to make sure the ideas connect, just hitting “submit” and then getting 3 hours of sleep before class the next day. Now that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it just doesn’t seem like Michael Keene spent much time listening back to the album to make sure it sounded its best. It seems like he just put out an album largely out of stress over the long wait because he needed to, because it was due. I’m being a little harsh on Michael Keene and his new hired guns, but he’s clearly been capable of doing so much better. The two spoken word tracks that show up on the album give some hint of conceptual connectivity but the lyrics are so much more cryptic than they are poetic (though poetic they often can be) they discourage their own decoding. I also can’t imagine how the out of place cover of Depeche Mode’s “Shake the Disease” fits into whatever potential concept about death and the afterlife this album is trying to dig up. I think maybe Michael just wanted to sing a Depeche Mode song, but not one that’s already been covered by the hundreds of metal bands that like Depeche Mode.

In Becoming a Ghost is not all bad though. The Faceless still conjure technical brutality in a way more palatable than most of their contemporaries, “Digging the Grave” (with that dank-ass flute solo) being an especially crushing and hypnotically manic example of Keene’s writing at its best. The album takes on a more heavily black metal character (most noticeably in the vocal department) than its three predecessors and this song (among others) shows a palpable Emperor influence. “Black Star” then drizzles a little bit of djent riffing over the mid tempo black metal prog it swirls in. I wish Keene’s clean vocals were as present on the entire album as they were on this song. “Cup of Mephistopheles” creeps by kind of like a modern Dimmu Borgir song until it’s eventually more excitingly drowned in djenty virtuoso guitar work and blast-beat-backed tremolo picking. The two-year-old single “The Spiraling Void” kind of passes by as kind of a non-addition to the album, appreciable and full of talent, but a bit dry and stale, except for the reverb-y guitar at the end that pairs with Keene’s clean vocals. “I Am” harkens back a bit to Planetary Duality with its quick staccato guitar tapping (the part I’m thinking of might not be tapping, who knows) but it kind of runs out of gas and into a bit of a fusion-y slow jam that’s not as moody as Keene probably wanted it to be. The album ends much less climatically than it needed to with “The Terminal Breath”, brimming of course with instrumental proficiency, but also the least album-worthy clean vocals on the whole project.

Micheal Keene is luckily the kind of guy who can write a paper the day before it’s due and get a B on it because he’s just that good at school (I’m speaking metaphorically obviously), but his lack of effort is obvious when you compare his A work to his B work, and I hope he can hold this incarnation of The Faceless together for another album and actually sit down to craft their next piece of work. For now, this album is just enough to slightly hold me over until then.