One of the more interesting bands in the extreme music underworld, Denvers Cephalic Carnage always impress, confound, annoy, and annihilate with each new release, and Anomalies is no exception. Definitely their finest work, the band have streamlined their eccentricities a bit, making this disc their most listenable yet. But dont think theyve softened up: Anomalies is still full of the frantic and technical grind the band is known for, as well as the expected forays into left-field where most grind bands dont dare to go. I could live without the trippy parts, or a song called "Kill for Weed for that matter, but this album has less of that stuff than its predecessor, Lucid Interval. And these guys can play the shit out of their instruments, whether theyre ripping it up with technical grindcore, sludge/doom metal, pseudo-humorous black metal or incredible Maiden-esque metal (as on this discs bizarre "Dying Will Be The Death Of Me). Anomalies is a more solid album that the bands last, Lucid Interval, being more cohesive and reigned in, even if it is as quirky as ever, and is way more memorable than the bands earlier material. The disc has a bit of a grower quality to it as well; if at first it seems a bit too par for the course for Cephalic, just give it some time. I dig the crazy grind the most, as always, but the closing ten-minute doom epic "Ontogony Of Behavior was awesome and, no surprise, a surprising way to end the disc.
With your band, people expect the unexpected. Do you try even harder to mix things up when youre crafting songs? Guitarist Steve Goldberg: That is our main goal. Expect the unexpected. With this new album, I think we surprised a lot of people. The first song to be released was "Dying Will Be the Death of Me, and a lot of people thought we turned into a metalcore band. But no matter which song we released first, I think it would be kind of deceiving. Every song sounds pretty different.
With such a diverse array of sounds on the album, what is the song writing process like? Does everyone contribute? In the past we wrote just about every song as a band. This time around we wrote more songs individually; there are probably only two songs that we all wrote together. It really helped in keeping the songs sounding different from one another.
Do you have any favourite songs on the record? My personal favourite is "Piecemaker. It is without a doubt the heaviest song we have ever written, and Jawsh [Mullen, vocals] did a tremendous job on the vocals on that song. He was on the verge of passing out or punching Zac [Joe, guitars] in the studio it was awesome!
(Relapse)With your band, people expect the unexpected. Do you try even harder to mix things up when youre crafting songs? Guitarist Steve Goldberg: That is our main goal. Expect the unexpected. With this new album, I think we surprised a lot of people. The first song to be released was "Dying Will Be the Death of Me, and a lot of people thought we turned into a metalcore band. But no matter which song we released first, I think it would be kind of deceiving. Every song sounds pretty different.
With such a diverse array of sounds on the album, what is the song writing process like? Does everyone contribute? In the past we wrote just about every song as a band. This time around we wrote more songs individually; there are probably only two songs that we all wrote together. It really helped in keeping the songs sounding different from one another.
Do you have any favourite songs on the record? My personal favourite is "Piecemaker. It is without a doubt the heaviest song we have ever written, and Jawsh [Mullen, vocals] did a tremendous job on the vocals on that song. He was on the verge of passing out or punching Zac [Joe, guitars] in the studio it was awesome!
