The Faceless
Planetary Duality

"An asshole but talented"

This was a definition given to Stanley Kubrick, taken from I don't know where, and I think it perfectly fits Micheal Keene, the axe of The Faceless, one of the most interesting bands in the American Tech Death scene of the last 10 years.

I'll get straight to the point: "Planetary Duality" wins almost everything, containing cascades of riffs, arpeggios, and dissonances in full modern Technical Death Metal style without falling into the ridiculous (some recent Archspire) and the cacophonic, a result that is almost incredible considering how extreme, in every sense, this proposal is.

An interesting work also from a lyrical standpoint, drawn from David Icke's tome Children of the Matrix, about how humanity in its entirety would be a slave race to various alien races, a very controversial theme recently tackled by Blood Incantation and several other bands, musically inspired by the most important names in contemporary Death Metal but with a taste for harmonization and melody that I find more unique than rare in its genre.

Tracks like The Ancient Covenant and the twin Planetary Duality 1 & 2 represent true classics of the genre (and not), extensively copied by countless bands worldwide; the razor-sharp guitars, the frenzied and intricate rhythm section, and a vocal performance pushed to the limit (in a positive sense) give this album a chilling aura, almost black metal, dry but not devoid of warmth (oxymoronically) and sentiment, with references to the most baroque classical music as well as to Mathcore in its most dissonant and chaotic form.

The production may remain the sore point of an almost perfect album that has sparked interest everywhere since its release, representing one of the few examples of Technical Death Metal that is not manneristic and cacophonic, as mentioned, and with more significant production, would have reached even greater heights in terms of appreciation and effectiveness.

The band would repeat itself with a successor absolutely on par, while over the years, due to drug addiction and an unfriendly character, it would lose several impressive line-ups (notably Ewan Brewer on bass) and many opportunities to become even more important on the international scene.

The quality remains in any case, and if you are die-hard fans of the most extreme sounds with excellent harmonic and melodic content, you absolutely cannot miss this album.