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Class 6(66)
Control Denied: The fragile art of existence
17/12/10 || Daemonomania
Introduction
Rewind to a month ago. IG hands me a copy of the Control Denied album at the Bohemian Beer Garden in Queens from the bottom of a manbag filled with dirty sweaty socks and alternative history paperbacks. It’s a side project I had heard of before, but figured some sort of power metal Death wasn’t for me. I ask how the vocals are, because you know how important the crooning can be to Daembro. IG tells me it sounds like the dude from Yngwie’s ‘The Seventh Sign’. My ears perk up, cuz that’s the type of clean vocals I can handle. Fast forward to the present, and I find myself kicking it to “The fragile art of existence” relentlessly.
Imagine a day in the life of The God that was Schuldiner. At the very height of his powers, he decides to move away from the metal of death and embrace the metal of power. The usual cast of talented musicians is assembled to back him up. Chuck lifts up a guitar and begins to shred. Lightening arcs from the clouds and strikes his skeletal fingers as they blaze across the fretboard. Control is denied all over the damn place. FUCK-HEN A.
Songwriting
7.5. While the album as a whole is filled with astonishing displays of technical prowess, the songwriting sometimes suffers from it. Time changes for the sake of time changes. Long solos. Summing it up in one word: wank. Still, who would ask Schultzy to stop when he’s making his axe beg for mercy? Not me. The only tunes in which I can readily identify problems other than wankery are “What if…?” which repeats the bit about burning stars waaaaay too much, and the beginning of the title track which is a bit unexciting.
Which leads me to discuss the end of “The fragile art…” – wow. When the singer takes a rest, the bassist starts droppin’ science, and then that eerie riff raises its head on the horizon… stroke, stroke, jizzzzzzzzz. This is but one of many moments throughout in which the listener is treated to real deal songwriting beauty. The basic instruments of rock and roll working together to form more than the sum of their parts. Transcendence is one way to describe it. FUCK-HEN A is another.
Production
9. This was done at Morrisound? Dealers in murk and muffling? By 1999 it appears Jim and the gang had their shit together and deliver a pristine production which serves to make each and every talented C.D. member sound perfect. DiGiorgio especially – I’ve rarely heard bass pop so good or be incorporated so well into the mix. The drums also have a very organic (natural?) tone. The guitars…well even if Morris recorded through a PVC pipe clogged with shart sauce, they would have come out miraculously clear. A bit thin methinks, but it carbon-dates the album well. Vocals are in the forefront and I’m sure some studio magic was applied to make Aymar better. Good job.
Guitars
10,000. I’m not going to pretend to be enough of a guitar person to know the difference between a Chuck lead and a Shannon Hammsandwichh lead. At first, I didn’t even know there WAS a second guitarist. Unsurprisingly Hammbo also played on Death’s “The sound of perseverance”. The two axemen sound incredibly in-synch on each and every song here.
I’d say the riffs sound a bit closer to what Chuckles was up to on “Symbolic”, but with more progression, experimentation, and less reliance on the tried and true formula of what makes a “death metal” riff. Not that there isn’t plenty of aggression on “Fragile”, but it’s balanced out with six string tranquility (acoustic section in “What if…?” equals noyce). Far be it from me to talk about the technical aspects any more than that. The guitarwork on tracks like jaw-dropping opener “Consumed” or the darker “Cut down” is plain otherworldly.
Vocals
7. Surely the sticking point for most folks with Control Denied, and had you asked me a few years ago I would have concurred. After being broken into the idea that non-growls and non-shrieks have a place in metal, things are different. Aymaraya reminds me of Michael Vescera a bit, with a hint of 90’s grunge. Especially when he harmonizes with himself, or is it with Chuck – very much a Layne Staley vibe. Timmy Boy also decides to scream on occasion, and it sounds very Chucky. Is he anywhere near as good as any of those three singers? Nicht. But no real complaints, and once in a while he captures the mood the lyrics are trying to convey perfectly. More about the singing and its relationship to the lyrics later in this review…
Bass
9. Even though I don’t know shit about the bass guitar and famous bassists, I can tell quality when I hear it. Steve D is a fucking beast. Might have to pick up some Sadus just to hear him kick it in another setting. Anyway, DiGiorgio is given room to play. And play he does. The opener, the closer (!), and everywhere in between. If I were an aspiring bassist and heard this shit, I’d not only quit right then and there but also attempt to end it all by getting naked and jumping from a high place onto my 6,000 stringer anus-first.
Drums
8. Richard Christy of “Howard Stern” fame performs impressively. I still can’t believe this dude was in Burning Inside, one of the shittiest “technical” death metal bands I’ve ever had the displeasure of laying ears upon. Anyway, there’s less double bass insanity than on your average Death album (needless to say), but Christy playfully accentuates the riffs and shows a high degree of creativity on every song. He comes across as a tad weak in the power department, but that might be the Floodhorse talking.
Lyrics
6. Well, as much as I like the Death self-references (“let the voice of the soul be free”, “once again empty words are to blame”), the lyrics equal clunky. Highlighting the clunkiness are the clean vocals. When Chuck growled awkward lines before it sounded cool because it was growls, but laid bare by comprehensible vocalizing the ideas seem a bit trite. Let’s take the classic idiom by Ben Franklin, “a penny saved is a penny earned.” If Schuldiner got ahold of it, here’s what would come out:
To earn
The pennies that make up the wealth of the soul
One must save
Constantly and then reality will enter mountain crystal of!
Kidding aside, nice to hear that some thought went in, but the lyrical well may have run dry at this point.
Cover art
7. Hands. Eyes. A frame. Mystery. Travis Smith, the guy responsible for cool album covers like “Blackwater park”, turns in an interesting and surely symbolic effort here. While it is not hands down the best metal album cover of all time, it fits the subject matter at hand. Plenty of orange, the most mehtahl hue of all.
Logo
3. Some big letter loopy font thing. The n and the t are friends. That’s about it excitement-wise.
Booklet
Sorry, don’t got it. Maybe it features some photos of Chuck playing a solo so intense and POWERful that a trash-littered parking lot in Tampa magically reverts into pristine wetlands.
Overall and ending rant
If you’re like me and think that progressive/power metal is a subgenre inhabited by hunchbacked nerdherders who still yearn for their mother’s teat…word, we agree. But Control Denied features metal’s most awesome guitarist (don’t debate it) taking a dump all over the notion that only DM is cool. If Chuck were a little more skilled at the fragile art of existence, he could make a fucken polka album seek and destroy all others right now. The vocals are probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but the guy’s competent. Combine that with proficient drumming and standout basswork and you’ve got yourself a musician’s album that is palatable even for those who have no idea what the hell is happening musically (me). Enjoy the expression of one man’s singular vision. Albums like this go to show how intelligent, emotional, and boundless metal can be. Well worth the purchase, or if you can find a copy amidst IG’s sweaty underthings – even better.
- Information
- Released: 1999
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: www.emptywords.org
- Band
- Tim Aymar: vocals
- Chuck Schuldiner: guitars
- Shannon Hamm: guitars
- Steve DiGiorgio: bass
- Richard Christy: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Consumed
- 02. Breaking The Broken
- 03. Expect The Unexpected
- 04. What If…?
- 05. When The Link Becomes Missing
- 06. Believe
- 07. Cut Down
- 08. The Fragile Art Of Existence
