Øscillatör – Experiment XIII

Probably entirely thanks to The Faceless, the death metal tree of life has sprung out a new sub-genre branch of sci-fi influenced death-metal. Now, this obviously isn’t an official genre name (although the band whose record is about to go under the microscope dubs themselves ‘science-metal’), it does sum up what a lot of acts are doing – super technical playing, fused with guttural and vocoder vocals, the occasionally creepy clean guitar atmospheric part. As well as songs about aliens and galactic stuff, of course.

The purely studio project of Brett Ruch (guitars, bass) and John Galloway (vocals/production), both under the age of 20, the self-styled ‘technical science metal’ two-piece Øscillatör are fresh out of Tampa, Florida. Their debut EP “Experiment XIII”, which is available here totally free, shows off how advanced home production jobs have become in the last few years, with the entire release being recorded/produced/engineered by Ruch and Galloway – and the eight song extended-play actually sounds damn good for a home job.

Musicianship wise, Ruch is an impressive force on the guitar, as he fires off crushing riffs and dazzling lead licks, and the young axeman’s awesome talents are nicely summed up a minute and a half into first track proper “Planetary Devastation”. The fury of “Aborted Pt. I”, which features a bizarre Hispanic interlude, is nicely countered by the hypnotic calmness of following track “ Aborted Pt. II” – of course though the restrained, clean guitar parts don’t last forever, and the EP’s two best tracks, “Elixir” and “Odium” crash through the serenity with raging drums, tremolo-picked guitars and well placed breakdowns. Galloway’s vocals are beastly, and interesting he also now sings in fellow tech-death band Rings of Saturn – a group that isn’t light-years (space pun intended) away from Øscillatör. It might be this reviewer’s ears, but the vocoder vocals really don’t work – not just on “Experiment XIII”, but basically any metal release ever; it really does just sound like a robot singing out of key. However the usage of atmosphere is vital for the release, with the creepy sections and glitching electronics tying a lot of the songs together – and the outro of the title track, which closes the release, is so spazzed out that this reviewer thought his ipod was having an electronic seizure.

While it’s not the most original thing you’ll hear in your life, and it does have a tendency to fly by in parts without many hooks to grab the listeners ears, fans of The Contortionist, Aegaeon and Fallujah should probably get onto this release ASAP.  So, if “Experiment XIII” sounds like it’s vaguely up your alley, the band have put up the entire EP online for FREE – so check out a young new band, and download Øscillatör’s debut release and wrap your ears around some fresh progressive death metal goodness.

Rating: 7/10
Label: Self-released (download it here)
Website: www.facebook.com/OscillatorMetal

By Andrew Kapper