For me, the best tech-death metal bands are First Fragment, Gorod and Obscura.  I know, I know there’s like a bajillion of tech-death bands, but these are my top three.  Over the course of Gorod’s existence, they have gone through a few musical changes.  Primarily starting out as a straight tech-death metal band, then adding jumpy progressive jazz fusion moments, which the band has continued to hone and craft with the last 3 albums, prior to The Orb.  On The Orb we 8 original songs and an insanely enthralling cover of “Strange Days”, by The Doors.

“Chrematheism” begins with straight-forward blasting before slowing down, then erupting into a monster jazzy groove with an absolute monster growl and the signature Gorod sound is there in full force.  “We Are the Sun Gods” with the monster blasts and the jumpy guitar riffing is quite breathtaking and the lead guitar riff, and melodies, are just light years above so many tech-death metal bands.  It’s to the point I find it quite amusing as this is complex music, but how Gorod can make these songs so damn catchy..it’s really beyond me.  The guitar solo at the 2-minute mark, reminds me of something Marty Friedman would do, and then the song traverses into an atmospheric, flamenco moment…something the band has flirted with in the past to great effect.  This classical, Flamenco-influenced moment, takes us on quite a journey-especially those drums!!  Listen to how insane the drumbeat is.  This part is a strong instrumental moment before some far away vocals come in, then the death metal vocals of Julien “Nutz” Deyres return.  The song’s stop n start moments are dizzying.  One moment I don’t know whether to headbang, do a swing-type of ball room-esque escapade across the floor or just listen in wonderment as to the talent Gorod possesses.

The title track is more accessible, as it features spoken word moments and some commercialized moments.  I find a very strong Cynic prog influence on this track.  It’s still metal, though, but definitely, a slight departure from the music Gorod usually writes.  It matters not as the song is excellent with incredible guitar solos towards the end.  The song is a mid-paced prog crunch fest with so many varying musical/vocals changes.  I’d welcome more of this type of style on their next album.

In 1967 The Doors released the Strange Days album, which features one of my favorite songs from them – the title track.  Gorod figured let’s take a stab at this classic rock song title and OMG….Gorod makes this track their own, while still retaining the majority of the key elements which make the original so special. We get the organ-based synth, just like the original, and then the washed-out vocals, with a potential vocoder effect-but he sounds like Jim Morrison-fantastic.  The guitar soloing that erupts as the song reaches a crescendo, before the catchy chorus, is EPIC…  The song features some off-kilter drumming and the double bass drums, accompanying it, are a thing of beauty.  The main guitar riff emulates the original perfectly.  I was listening to this track, blindly at the gym, for the first time and I was like…they covered The Doors..what the heck??…then I proceeded to repeat this song, like 20x/in a row..no joke.

The production on The Orb is excellent and the instruments…every one of them, and the bass guitar are crystal clear and at times, quite pummeling.  The drum sound is chest collapsing-I love it.  Gorod continues to be exciting, original and ever-advancing in the over-saturated tech-death metal scene.  The jazz moments, brutality, proggy jumpy rhythm section are mind-boggling awesome.

I know it’s pretty early for 2023, but there will have to be something so dynamite coming out this year in order to usurp this as the best tech-death metal album, of 2023.

And the forgetful, choppy opening track “Wolfsmond” does little to really alleviate any concerns, but second track, the deeply conceptual “Bekhten’s Curse” bursts open with the band’s signature, addictive,  jazzy, and once again happy,  catchy take on tech death metal that turns the genre on its head. Even with the focus on more shouted vocals, its an outstanding track. The title track comes next with an almost 6-minute foray into more tempered, progressive yet still tech death metal pastures, and it works well.

“The Sentry” is a classic Gorod paced and styled track, with staccato, melodic stops and starts, while one of my favorite tracks, “Hina” delivers a real surge of classically inspired melodic energy and urgency, showing the band is still effortlessly, atop of the hill. “And the Moon Turns Black”, sees the band more straight up brutal tech death with some nice stop-start groove and stomp, but still flocked with supine guitar work and a nice short sharp keyboard burst, that’s a pleasant if short lived surprise.

Things get super playful and jazzy for my other favorite track, “Chandra and the Maiden”, but goddamn it just makes me smile from ear to ear, shred my air guitar and drums, yet still manages to use blast beats effectively, and makes me tell my self how really good these guys are. After that wonderful ditty, “Goddess of Dirt” goes straight for the throat with a more direct burst of burly, hefty tech death energy, showing the band can simply do it all. But on a dime, the next track “Inexorable”, a slow waltz-y number, then as if to show off, they deliver some of the album’s most truly jaw-dropping guitar work for the closer, “A Light Unseen”.

Yet another stunning album from these French masters of the genre and where Obscura’s 2018 release, Diluvium, didn’t really register with me for some reason, Gorod and Aethra absolutely hits the spot and delivers one of the year’s best pure tech death albums.

Gorod beg to differ. And for their last four albums, the band have indeed infused normally sterile tech death metal with a jazzy, playful sense of mischief and melody. However, on album number five, as Theory In Practice did with Colonizing the Sun back in 2002, Gorod has utterly destroyed what tech death metal should and can be. They’ve made a tech death album that’s a sheer joy to listen to, and might even make the most ardent tech death head crack a happy face.

Sure, it’s got the tech death backbone of shreddy noodling riffs and blast beats, as well as the growls to keep it firmly on the death side of things, but the jazzy and melodic elements have been upped to a degree that almost makes this an entirely new genre. A Maze of Recycled Creeds is simply a delight to listen to. It’s chock full of fretless bass runs, solos, and jazzy, funky, dancing, poppy melodies that all just happen to be delivered within tech death metal’s paradigms. Throw in the lyrical concept  concerning the writings of Rosicrucian Sâr Merodack Joséphin Péladan, and it’s a challenging, fun, and brilliant album.

Standout tracks are abound, but the swirly, addictive “The Mystic Triad,” the shimmery harmonies of “From Passion to Holiness,” the grooving, aptly titled “Rejoice the Soul” (which comes close to the full-on funkadelic “Varangian Paradise” from A Perfect Absolution), and “Syncretic Delerium” all make me shimmy and smile with glee. And that’s most definitely not my usual reaction to any death metal album.

All of these tracks, and well as others on the album, shatter the myth that tech death is just all about skill but not memorable songwriting. They show that Gorod are simply turning the genre on its head while delivering one of the year’s very best and entertaining albums.

And so, after hearing my first taste of A Perfect Absolution with “Varangian Paradise” and its blaxploitation Shaft-funk intro,  I had to, yet again, acknowledge that these guys were still deserving of that Most Creative badge. ‘Course, I’m a sucker for any kind of genre-splicing whimsical madness, especially when it involves translating your earlier material into acoustic flamenco (as they did on Transcendence‘s brilliant redo of “Blackout”), or incorporating progressive explorations and soothing cleans (Transcendence‘s epic title track). The chicka-chicka-wah-wah doesn’t quite come back after that intro, but the rest of the bouncy, bludgeoning track slinks, struts and swaggers into a crazy samba or bossa nova groove, complete with sotto voce spoken word like Mike Patton playing a South American cafe tour. It’s easily as colorful as the material I loved most off of Transcendence, and which I hoped their full-length follow-up would be jam-packed with. Sadly, it was not to be, as the rest of A Perfect Absolution goes for a more straightforward Gorod sound, without any more overtly fanciful additions. That’s not to say that it’s not playful, though – the album’s got a few experiments and novel elements – some of them memorable moments, and a few that I don’t care to hear again.

First up, the good stuff, and there’s lots of it, starting with the crystalline black metal breaks in the excellent, face-ripping “Birds of Sulphur.” It’s then followed by “Sailing into the Earth,” a hyperactive dynamo that blends the staccato lurch of “Thirst for Power” with the fluid note-blizzard of “Programmers of Decline,” two of the best moments off of the last two albums. “The Axe of God” starts with some brutal, grindy piggy stuff, which I dig in small doses, just like bacon in my chocolate ice cream. The second half of the track is one of the album’s highlights, with its plaintive, Opeth-ian bridge and virtuoso soloing. “Elements and Spirit” (with guest playing by Mike Keene from The Faceless) features a nifty break in the middle which reminds me of a tech death Phish (no really, it works). “5000 at the Funeral” ends with a series of solos, so blurry-fast that they border on blippy chiptune. And “Tribute of Blood” is just straight-up awesome, especially its southern-fried solo during the bridge.

Then, the stuff that didn’t quite work for me: the vaguely mallcore screams during the chorus of “The Axe of God.” A straight-up croon would have been a ballsier choice, and oddly, less jarring. “Elements and Spirit,” although one of the most challenging compositions on the album, also starts off with a melody that sounds downright happy, like unicorns butt-sliding down a double rainbow. It also attempts to peak with a screamed spoken word segment about 3/4 through, didn’t care for that either. “5000 at the Funeral,” though it ends with a wow, starts off as an absolute snoozer, with a minute-long dirge intro that pile-drives the album’s pace into a muddy grave, followed by another minute of doomy, meandering lurch. The track does feature guest playing by Christian Muenzer (from Obscura, ex-Necrophagist) though, so I guess it’s forgiven. “Carved in the Wind” also suffers from some odd pacing, choosing to slam the song’s forward momentum to a halt several times with the same noodly, proggy break.

Still, these are all nitpicks on what has been quite a pleasurable album to learn over the past month. Song for song, I actually think A Perfect Absolution actually stacks up better than Process of a New Decline. Despite that album’s staggering opening (with the back-to-back flying mindfuck of “Disavow Your God” and “Programmers of Decline”), it hasn’t aged well for me, with its second half weighed down by too much gloomy progressive experimentation and midtempo sludge. A Perfect Absolution sloughs off all of that muck and gets back to the bouncy, nimble and brutal sound I loved from Leading Vision. I still would have loved more of the genre-splicing brilliance from Transcendence (yes, even those weirdo Sugar Plum fairy chimes from the “Earth Pus” remake), but I’ll settle for entertaining tech death that’s enjoyable to listen to, expertly played and yes, still creative as hell.

First off is “Earth Pus,” a new recording of a track from their 2005 release Neurotripsicks. It’s a blustery, groovy beast, all spidery scramble atop bassline strut. The new recording separates the high and low ends even more, so that it sounds at times as nimble and playful as Process, but with the heavier lurch of 2007’s Leading Vision. The languid passage at the song’s core gets a bit of subtle synth work this time around as well – a nice touch. Ultimately I don’t know if this version was a mandatory re-record, as the original version is still pretty great, but it’s likely here as a setup for what’s to follow.

Now, if you don’t already know “Earth Pus” from its previous incarnation, you may have to listen to the new version a few times before you can link it to “Earth Pus: Salvation.” It’s a scampering, acoustic gypsy-jazz version complete with chiming bells and swelling strings. Basically, French tech death by way of Django Reinhardt, with a bit of the Nutcracker Waltz thrown in for good measure. No, I’m not kidding.

And yeah, that’s certainly a WTF execution for death metal, even for the adventurous antipodes of technical death. However strange it may be, it also shouldn’t be too much of a surprise for Gorod fans. Remember the end of “Hidden Genocide,” the final track on Leading Vision? It closed out with a nimble little acoustic hopalong, and it was so well-rendered and well, charming, that I wondered at the time what an entirely acoustic Gorod or tech-death album might sound like. Well, here it is, with bells on.

The other acoustic re-imagining covers “Blackout,” the third track from Leading Vision, and it’s my favorite of the two radical reinventions: a graceful Spanish flamenco number, complete with clop-clopping percussion. Occasionally you’ll recognize a bass passage or melody from the original “Blackout,” and the ending sequence comes across loud and clear. For the most part though, you can just close your eyes and picture festival lights strung across a moonlit square, beautiful senoritas twirling across the dance floor, their white dresses blooming and fanning out from tanned and shapely legs – wait, I’m still reviewing a death metal album here, right?

The final cover here is of instrumental track “Textures,” from Cynic’s groundbreaking Focus. Unlike the two gypsy-jazz interpretations detailed above, this is a much more straightforward and metallic version. There’s a sharper bite to Gorod’s version, but it remains as fluid and dreamlike as the original, with very little monstrous death metal heft to weigh it down.

And that finally brings us to the title track, a twisty, progressive epic which touches on influences from Zappa to Opeth. Some clean Akerfeldt-style vocals, jazz-fueled flights of fancy, muscular stutter and Cynic-al, double-helical grooviness – this song’s got it all. At fifteen minutes, it’s the longest and most ambitious thing that the band has ever created, and if it’s a sign of things to come, then we’ve got a monster of a full-length to look forward to.

Look, I know everyone’s still feeling tender from Morbid Angel’s bizarre sidestep into mid-90s industrial stomp, so those of you more traditional death metal listeners out there might find this EP to be a bit much. Your loss though (and really, how can a culture so rooted in anti-conformism be so damn conservative sometimes?). Even if the loopy, virtuoso and downright ballsy gypsy-jazz covers make you furrow your brow, the other offerings here still cement what I’ve known for the last five years – that Gorod is one of the most exciting, versatile and creative death metal bands on the planet.

Yep, the new album from these French technical wizards is out and it is every bit as amazing as expected. The jazzy, playful bounce and swing from Leading Vision is still here, but now it’s paired with an obsessively detailed melodic firestorm that’s just this side of Dragonforce. Not to say that this approaches the ridiculous 8-bit burble of that band’s more frantic moments – just that the speed and complexity of every frenzied explosion on Process of a New Decline is absolutely mind-numbing.

Where opener “Disavow Your God” wows with a syncopated neoclassical break, follow-up “Programmers of Decline” blows past it with a nonstop arpeggio freakout.  This isn’t just mindless wankmanship – as with Leading Vision and Neurotripsicks, the songwriting throughout Process of a New Decline is precise, fluid and consistently entertaining.

The keys here are structure and balance, even in the face of such extravagance. That means that the drumming is both furious and meticulous, but it lets the guitars take their rightful place up front – no limelight-grabbing fills or rolls. And it means that the guys in Gorod know when to forge ahead at their usual blistering pace, but they also know when to loosen up and breathe with a jazzy, stuttering lope, or when to slow down, as in the pensive, doomy second half of “Splinters of Life.” There are also a few surprises as well, like the majestic entrance to “The Path,” the Cynic-al opening minutes of “Watershed,” or the ethereal clean vocals that appear on both tracks. “Watershed” in particular is a standout among an album full of standouts, and I wouldn’t be surprised if its lyrical, haunting outro was inspired by the album of the same name.

If Leading Vision hadn’t already cemented Gorod‘s status as the best tech-death band on the planet, Process of a New Decline definitely does.

Six songs have been written so far, and the band claims that the new album, “will be an evolution of the process that began with Leading Vision.”

Gorod has posted a video on their MySpace page that previews a new song from the upcoming album. You can check that out on MySpace here or Youtube here. A music video for the song “Here Die Your Gods” is in production and should be released some time this summer.

Gorod hopes to tour extensively in support of the new release in 2009. If you are interested in helping to book/promote the tour, please send an email to pascal.baseprod_@_wanadoo.fr

Starting with the breathtaking duo of “Here Die Your Gods” and “Thirst For Power” as the arpeggio ripe “Blackout” pretty much each track on Leading Vision is a stunning example of tech death metal perfection that should have Necrophagist’s Muhammed Suiçmez sweating bullets that his tech death crown might be in jeopardy if the next album isn’t sheer genius. The tangible brutalization of the Death/Atheist/Cynic guitar and bass work is still present and the melody seems more purposeful than the slightly random melody injections of Neurotripsicks. However, though not a beef for me, some of the grizzled death metal types may find some of the guitar work a bit too ‘happy’ (i.e. closer “Hidden Genocide”). For me though, it’s a pleasant change from the usual grim nature of the genre. As with Neurotripsicks drum fatale Sandrine is a furious force behind the kit and folks in the drum community should now start mentioning her near elite circle and not just because she’s a ‘girl’ and vocalist Guillaume delivers a sturdy bellow, free from experimentation, allowing the music to be the focal point of this superb album.

The band seems to have also matured lyrically as instead of “”Pigs Bloated Face”, “Harmony in Torture” or “Rusted Nails Attack” we get a more cerebral approach that matches the brilliantly challenging music that’s more befitting the music (“State of Secret”, “Eternal Messiah” and “Obseqiuim Minaris”). All these steps in the bands development from Neurotripsicks, make Leading Vision a standout technical death metal album that easily measures up to this years other fine releases.