Hybreed Chaos

I become paralysed with dread when I see a moniker like Hybreed Chaos, worried that they're going to be a total no-fun, dive-bar take on Meshuggah. Luckily, this Montreal-based death crew don't play it safe like that whatsoever. While the tunes are often fairly straight-ahead, Jungle Rot-ian takes on caveman death, the drummer comes along and constantly complicates things, which is entertaining to listen to. Riffs like the berserk one on "Dismembered Purity" rule, almost bringing a fun power violence feel to the party, while the totally unhinged vocal performance has much more life to it than most death metal grunters. With an ex-Paroxysm drummer and bassist Olivier Pinard (who's done session work for Cryptopsy), the talent and experience levels are high, and the mix of weirdo technical and progressive aspects combined with more heads-down death metal works well. I like the boldness of a group releasing a 29-minute disc as their debut album in 2013, although even at that short length, the vocals start to grate a bit. Unhinged is good, but sometimes you want just a bit more silence to let the music breathe.