NEURAXIS
"The Thin Line Between"
(Prosthetic; 2008)
Reviewed by Metal Mark
Montreal’s Neuraxis play a fairly technical, semi melodic brand of death metal that seems to thrive more on smoothness than on actual aggression. They do rattle off at a rather rapid fire pace as they often just soar into their songs with little build-up. I think their approach of launching into most of the tracks helps to pull your attention straight in to what they are attempting to accomplish.
Melodies make up a big part of the material here and they handle them with a good deal of finesse. I didn’t take to the album immediately because I think that some of the heaviness that could have been present is slightly lost beneath the gloss of the overall sound. I think the CD may have benefited from some sharper cuts and hooks because there were a number of times where it feels a bit one dimensional.
There are more than a few times, however, when Neuraxis lets loose with spine jarring moments that were both slightly surprising and certainly welcome. It just seemed there were too many times where they kind of glided into a rather limited sound array of sounds and I could just feel the indifference rising inside me.
The drums seemed more focused on speed than on actual heaviness and the difference left a few songs sounding a bit hollow. The vocals were also a bit repetitive and began to drone on at times without any real emotion or change in pitch. I like their control of the pace, but the details within the songs vary from fair to good.
"The Thin Line Between" is a decent release, but not as heavy or dynamic as I would have liked it to be.
For more information, check out http://www.myspace.com/neuraxis.
Rating Guide:
A classic. This record will kick your ass.
Killer. Not a classic but it will rock your world.
So-so. You've heard better.
Pretty bad. Might make a nice coaster.
Self explanatory. Just the sight of the cover makes you wanna hurl.
Copyright © 2008 by R. Scott Bolton. All rights
reserved.
Revised: 23 Oct 2008 01:41:24 -0500.
