Acrania are a death metal/deathcore trio from the UK, and their debut album for Unique Leader Records is titled Totalitarian Dystopia. Sporting some pretty grotesque cover artwork, the music is no less subtle, as Luke Griffin (vocals), Jack Simmons (guitar), and Jake Hadley (drums) pound away mercilessly here for some truly brutal sounds. That's right, no bassist in Acrania, the band instead choosing to have the guitar riffs & jackhammer drumming cover some of that bottom end, which you can hear to full effect on the grinding, slashing, breakdown beast that is "A Gluttonous Abomination". Griffin's vocals are an assortment of growls, grunts, and screams, and while he's not the most original singer you've heard in extreme metal, he fits the bill just fine. In fact, my overall perception of Acrania kind of mirrors that thought; these guys are very competent, the songs are brutal as all hell, and they push all the right buttons combining death metal, deathcore, and grind, but there's really nothing here you haven't heard before. Simmons is indeed a riff machine, whether he's firing off some straight forward pummeling riffs, churning out some technical passages, or delivering some screaming pinch harmonics as on "Lobotomize, Dehumanise, Negate [LDN]", but again, nothing overly groundbreaking. If you love this sort of thing, Totalitarian Dystopia is perfectly competent and solid, so if you aren't expecting the new saviors of extreme metal, this one is more than enjoyable enough.
Track Listing
1. Hollow
2. Festering With Dishonesty
3. Totalitarian Dystopia
4. Servants Of Hypocrisy
5. Survival Sequence
6. A Gluttonous Abomination
7. Susceptible To Retinal Reprogrammability
8. Lobotomise, Dehumanise, Negate. [LDN]
9. Messiah Of Manipulation
10. Disillusion In A Discordant System
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