### Azure Emote: The gravity of impermanence

#### 02/12/13 || Pr0nogo

#### SAVE ME FROM THE SKRILLEX OF DEATH METAL

When some people hear the term “Avant-garde”, they think of nice things, like Philip Glass’ “Koyaanisqatsi“ or the art of some Fleshgod Apocalypse albums. Whenever I hear “Avant-garde”, however, I don’t think of fun things – not at all. I think of all the pretentious, eclectic, confusing, disgusting albums I’ve had to listen to over the years. Unfortunately for my ears, that time of the year is here again, so let’s get on with it and review “The Gravity of Impermanence“, the second full-length album from “industrial/Avant-garde death metal” threesome Azure Emote. Oh boy. This one’s gonna hurt.

Hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania isn’t always a bad thing, but unless you are Benjamin Franklin, you might want to get out of there quickly. I say this because Azure Emote comes from good ol’ Philly, and unless you want or already have had several aneurysms, your best bet for survival is to get the fuck out. Even as I type, my vision is fading as a result of the guitar-work on tracks like “Marching Forth”, which is soon followed by what sounds like a saxophone. If I get to the point where I have trouble identifying the instruments used in a metal song, and we aren’t listening to Ensiferum’s latest jumble of lard, we’re in trouble. The last time I had to listen to a saxophone was when that stupid djent group The Faceless released a full-length, and I didn’t want to listen to it then, either. Drop the folk metal tools, boys. This is death metal.

The guitars are sometimes audible over the samples and the electronica, which makes up about 90% of the album as far as I can tell. When you can hear it, however, you’ll wish you couldn’t – every tone is played too long and too high, every riff is a carbon copy of another one on the album, and if you didn’t have a headache before, you have one now. I swear the promo came with a surgeon general’s warning – something about not mixing the contents of the album with alcohol, but how else am I supposed to deal with this shit? I can’t review what I can’t hear, and if the only time I can hear something is when it’s shattering my eardrums, I think I need some Irish medicine to cope. Was this the intended effect? If so, fuck you!

The vocals can actually be heard most of the time, thankfully, so after you get to the point where you’ve tuned out the untuned guitars, you can begin to understand what’s going on. I say you because I mean you, specifically. I’m too disoriented to review jack shit. The vocals are pretty standard fare for death metal – basic low growls and mid-pitched shrieks, with a few highs for variety – but then the synth and the electronics come in and the vocals get edited and my ear buds break. Why would anybody think that this is okay? Why would anyone want to distort their vocals so much that you can’t even tell if they’re vocals when all is said and done? Oh well, at least I don’t have to listen to any of that crap anymore.

The one consistently-audible thing on this record is the drums. I’d review the bass, but fuck you – if the guitars aren’t even audible unless it’s some autistic man trying to play a solo on track number seven, do you think I can hear the bass at all? You guessed right – I can’t hear it, but there’s no bassist credited, so maybe there isn’t one to begin with. The drums, however, are audible, and they’re the one part of this eclectic, disorienting, and ultimately fucking annoying mix that I had to hold onto throughout my listen of this hour-long journey of horrors. Between the very standard and very basic snare hits, hat hits, and bass kicks, I shouldn’t find the drum fills on “The Gravity of Impermanence“ special – but compared to the sonic hell that I’ve had to put up with up until this point, these drum tracks are a godsend. It’s just rather depressing that the best part of this release is a set of simple hits on a drum set.

I feel like listening to this album was a low point in my life, from which I’ll never truly recover. I’ve had to deal with disgusting music before, but this one gave me such a bad headache that I literally almost threw up. I’ve never almost blown chunks over a fucking music album, no matter how bad it was. Congratulations, Azure Emote – you win the award for most likely to make reviewers upchuck all over their keyboards. That’s what this review must look like, anyway – a pile of puke about an even smellier pile of puke. Well, guess what? I ain’t cleaning that up, so go get a mop and deal with this shit. I’m done. Fuck you, Azure Emote.

Listen here.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Selfmadegod Records
- Website: www.azureemote.com
- Band
- Mike Hrubovcak: vocals, keyboard, harmonica, programming
- Ryan Moll: guitars
- Mike Heller: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Epoch of de-evolution
- 02. Carpe Diem
- 03. Marching forth
- 04. Sunrise slaughter
- 05. Conduit of atrophy
- 06. Veils of looming despair
- 07. Dissent
- 08. The living spiral
- 09. Obsessive time directive
- 10. Patholysis
- 11. Destroyer of suffering
- 12. Annunaki Illuminati
- 13. The color of blood
- 14. Puppet deities