### Cosmic Atrophy: Codex incubo

#### 20/04/09 || HailandKill

The funny shit going on with Cosmic Atrophy is there are only two guys behind this whole album…and they met over the Internet a year ago. The wonders of technology, eh? Attribute the same wonders to finely programmed drums and squeaking clean production, two ingredients contributing to this very polished debut from a couple of dudes who may indeed have a fighting chance in today’s immense death metal underground.

The gist of Cosmic Atrophy is alien, science fiction themed melodic death metal easy on the brutal shit but thick on the mind-bending weirdness. Riffs are mostly catchy grooves while the vocals are deep, ominous incantations. Yes, Incantation are indeed one of frontman and brains-of-the-band Corey Richards’ main influences, but it doesn’t show on his own music. Was this aside really necessary?

His partner in crime Juan Garcia’s presence is in the guitars department, so when you hear the wondrous noodles on songs “Consumed from within the x-zone”, soundtrack-like rhythm playing all over the place, and the ominous “Cydonic adulations”, it’s him.

Right from the start the album grabs the listener’s attention with its odd take on the genre it supposedly belongs to. The tempos are relaxed, the mood sinister and scary, and the six compositions inside this “Codex incubo” do clock in at five minutes each. So prepare for your brain to be probed by cold, alien intelligences. Yuck. Track seven is a sound effects laden outro, girlies.

The mouthfuls “Shattering of terrestrial reality”, “Cydonic adulations”, “Doomed by the cancer domus”, and the creepy as hell “The granfallon” form the album’s choicest cuts. Cosmic Atrophy have established themselves as an inventive, if solitary (how can you tour when there are just two guitarists in the band?), metal band who already have a stab at being original. You could imagine them finding their very own niche once they graduate up the music career ladder by joining a respectable label.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Remember, this is just album one and the future of the band—though album number two is already underway—remains adrift in the lifeless sea of obscurity.

8 atrophied penises out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Metabolic Records
- Website: www.myspace.com/atrophy
- Band
- Corey Richards: vocals, guitars, producing, everything else
- Juan Garcia: guitars

- Tracklist
- 01. Prelude to phantasmagoria
- 02. Consumed From within the x-zone
- 03. Shattering of terrestrial reality
- 04. Cydonic adulations
- 05. Doomed by the cancer domus
- 06. The granfalloon
- 07. Adrift in the lifeless sea of black