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Centinex: Decadence (prophecies of cosmic chaos)
17/09/08 || Daemonomania
Hey, remember when Swedish melodic death metal was cool? Yes, it was a long time ago, but you can recollect to those hoary aeons of old when it was OK to have an In Flames album. When this style had yet to be carved up and sewn bit by bit into metalcore, or rendered impotent by a painful preponderance of clean vocals, or computerized to the point where you could hit a series of buttons in a recording studio to create melodeath album R:1342.
If you can dimly recall this bygone era, or can unearth cobwebbed traces of it with a miner’s helmet and a pickaxe, then Centinex is a band you’re sorry you missed. Let’s painfully stretch the melodeath = antiquity metaphor, shall we? Centinex was the At the Gates influenced tribe that never built a big pyramid. There’s some artifacts here and there that they were around (members have played in World Below, Mynjun, Amaran, Julie Laughs Nomore (WTF), Demonical, Grave, Interment, Beyond, Regurgitate, Moondark, Dellamorte, S.G.R., Pexilated, Scar Symmetry, Carnal Forge, Sickinside, Incapacity, Uncanny, Dismember, Carnage, Daemon, and Terra Firma – FUCK) but they’re not as remembered as such civilizations as Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Soilwork, or Dark Tranquility.
No, the Centinex tribe lived and died in relative obscurity, harvesting the fertile lands and crafting tools from… ok, done.
What we have here, besides a failure to communicate, is a very very fine example of taking the “Slaughter of the soul” formula and rocking it out without cocking it out. Not that that Centinex don’t enjoy the music that they are creating with their phalluses exposed, mind you. They manage to take the pattern, give it their own little twists, and not put it out on the streets to make some money. Clean choruses are absent. Wanky guitar solos are suppressed. Cheesy keyboards are burned alive.
The result is some wonderfully cruel melodic death that doesn’t forget the death – growls, higher Tompaish screeches, full-on breakneck drumming, INTERESTING riffs, good song construction, and bass that doesn’t take a spotlight but adds to the thrashing madness. You can tell all these guys have been around, and know just when to include an interesting break, a nasty solo, or just to steam ahead to injure the listener’s spinal cord. Which makes me wonder – when we metalheads get old, will our necks be all fucked up? You’ve seen those elderly people who are so hunched over that they can’t even look in front of them – bent and broken by age. We just might look like that at 47. Then again, Lemmy seems pretty healthy, so maybe we’ll all be fine.
One of my favorite things about “Decadence” is the song titles. “Target: dimension XII”? Excellent. Fuck Dimension XII – nothing wrong with Dimension XI, mind you – they’re cool over there, but that Dimension XII is full of asshats and should be terminated immediately. And “Deathstar unmasked”? Hmm, that gigantic metallic ball orbiting our planet looks pretty suspicious… HOLY FUCK – it’s the Death Star! Should have figured that out before, now we’re all doomed. The lyrics are quite mature as well, with futuristic shit from outer space nixing humanity on a regular basis. Which makes my past civilization comparison ever more retarded. Oh well.
Throw in some good cover art and I can safely say we’re got ourselves a deal! Sure it is not as good as At the Gates but you can tell they were giving it their best effort. If you’re not already completely jaded by the whole melodic death thing and are willing to dig up a little gem you might have missed, “Prophecies of cosmic cumshots” could be just the disc for you.
7 even-numbered dimensions targeted just for the hell of it out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Candlelight Records
- Website: www.centinex.org
- Band
- Johan Jansson: vocals
- Martin Schulman: bass
- Kennet Englund: drums
- Johan Ahlberg: guitars
- Jonas Kjellgren: guitars
- Tracklist
- 01. Arrival of the Spectrum Obscure
- 02. Misanthropic Darkzone
- 03. Hollowsphere
- 04. Target: Dimension XII
- 05. Deathstar Unmasked
- 06. A Dynasty of Obediance
- 07. Mechanical Future
- 08. Cold Deep Supremacy
- 09. New World Odyssey
