Changeling: Changeling

Changeling is the brainchild of Tom Geldschläger, aka Tom Fountainhead, now Changeling. His previous work and collaboration credits are large and varied; Obscura, Belphegor, Marco Minnemann, Defeated Sanity, Hannes Grossmann, Christian Münzner, Nader Sadekvto name a few. On this album he is joined by Mike Heller (Fear Factory, Malignancy, Raven) on Drums, Arran McSporran (Vipassi, Virvum) on Fretless bass & Morean (Alkaloid, Dark Fortress) on Lead vocals & lyrics.

The Self-titled debut from Changeling was released earlier this year by Season of Mist and is somewhat of a musical enigma to me. After reading the credits and seeing references to Obscura, Fretless bass, and Technical Death metal I went in with some preconceived ideas of what this album would be like. At times my preconceptions are validated, but on the whole this album is not what I expected.

The album commences with a heavy introduction track called ‘Introject’, which flows nicely into ‘Instant Results’. At this point the album is in line with what I had expected...it's guitar-focused technical death metal. However, as the album goes on, I hear less overt Death metal and a wider range of sounds and influences. The vocal delivery is also quite varied over the course of the release.

Tom uses a fretless guitar at times, and he is accompanied by fretless bass. Accordingly the arrangements often employ riffing that incorporates slide movements and other nuances that you can only play on a fretless instrument. Aside from it giving me aural sea sickness at times, its pretty cool. The other obvious comment is that Fountainhead is a speed demon on the guitar. His leads are super quick and clean so if shred guitar is of interest to you, you’ll want to at least give this album a play through.

As the album works through the track listing the songs get more and more adventurous. Where the album commences in a relatively typical Obscura / Beyond Creation style technical death metal, the songs get longer and more diverse as we work through the track listing. In amongst the substantial tracks we also get a couple of short instrumentals; "Metanoia Interlude" and "Cathexis Interlude" both run it at ~1m in length and are nice change-ups to the shred-heavy madness of the rest of the album. By the time we get to the song "Changeling", from the album Changeling by the band Changeling, we’ve moved sufficiently far away from ‘standard’ tech death into a realm of music that has some strong progressive tendances. I hear world music, Devin Townsend / Strapping Young Lad style craziness, and a Vai/Zappa zaniness amongst the heavier elements. From this point on the tracks stretch out too; "Abyss", "Abdication", "Anathema" all range from 8 minutes to 16 and a half minutes in length.

Perhaps the reference to both Townsend and Vai stems from how free-spirited this album is from an overall perspective. Take an Album like Flex-able (Vai) or Empath (Townsend), they’re examples of albums that aren’t confined to genre within each track, let alone from an overall album perspective. In some respects, I feel like Changeling is equally free-spirited in the approach to this release, especially the latter half. Unfortunately, whilst I have tremendous respect and admiration for the skill and dexterity of the playing, unlike Vai or Townsend, I don’t quite hear the genius. This is certainly not nearly a poor album, but the longer tracks don’t necessarily feel inspired to me. Equally, whilst the predominant genre is technical death metal, I don’t necessarily get the primal kick that I’m searching for from an extreme metal release. It's fast and frantic, but potentially lacks the aggression and heaviness that I’m searching for. Perhaps I’m being overly critical, because overall this album is definitely enjoyable and certainly worth checking out if you’re a fan of creative, adventurous, shred-happy music.

Tracklist:
1. Introject (1:56)
2. Instant Results (4:33)
3. Falling in Circles (3:47)
4. World? What World? (6:43)
5. Metanoia Interlude (00:57)
6. Changeling (6:57)
7. Abyss (8:06)
8. Cathexis Interlude (1:19)
9. Abdication (9:05)
10. Anathema (16:51)

Added: July 23rd 2025
Reviewer: Chris Reid
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 320
Language: english

[ Printer Friendly Page ]
[ Send to a Friend ]