Beyond Creation - Algorythm

The line between great technical death metal and boring, soulless technical death metal is definitely a fine one, and one that’s tough to pinpoint. There has been a lot of really great techdeath coming out this year, and I was really excited for Beyond Creation to add their name to the list of honor after their dramatic burst onto Quebec’s techdeath scene early this decade with two standout albums, but their third album here finds the Canadian outfit in just uncharacteristically bland form.
There are the usual components of techdeath to be found here and some of it comes together rather well. The song “Surface’s Echoes” brings a good deal of bass-y, djenty flash to the track list, and the calm tapping intro of “Ethereal Kingdom” ascends into something invigorating and reminiscent of Gojira with some nice 8-string accents. The songs “Binomial Structures” and “The Afterlife” end the album on an alright note at least, with some of the more passionate soloing taking place on the introductory section of solely instrumental former track and some refreshingly heated thrash-style riffing on the latter cut. I also like the opening riffage on the song “In Adversity”, but the song falls into the obscurity of the typical techdeath record soon after.
And unfortunately, that’s kind of the story for most of the album. Songs like the overblown “The Inversion” and the title track are just so basic and unimaginative that don’t bring nearly the same energy or even the required energy for this style. The structures are rigid and don’t build to anything worth their lengths, the solos generally don’t go anywhere and don’t add any extra soul to their respective songs. The vocals are so nondesprict, you could tell me it was some guy they met at a show filling in and I would believe you; they bring no personality to the album at all. The band are really playing to blend in this time rather than stand out. Yes, they show their playing capabilities alright, but it just seems like a practice sesh for them. These songs just seem like the baseline for what they would ordinarily make a whole lot more exciting.
After making a rather unique mark on techdeath with The Aura and Earthborn Evolution, Algorythm just seems so half awake like the band couldn’t keep their attention fixed on what they were doing in the studio for any substantially extended time period and instead recorded about 50 minutes of material they weren’t even paying attention to. Even the highlight moments of this album aren’t consistently thrilling or as distinct as they should be. This just seems so uninvested for Beyond Creation and so below them, but now it’s a third of their discography; hopefully this was just a little hiccup for them and not the sign of the full exhaustion of their magic.

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