Hey there, tech fiends. It's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's focus, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking for even more sick bands to hear, all prior editions of this series can be perused here.
It’s always a pleasure to get to help a lot of bands out every time a new release is on the horizon. French tech-death overlords, SlaveOne is a group I’ve been covering here since 2016 when I caught wind of their debut album, Disclosed Dioptric Principles. Just as it was a pleasure to help the group launch an early stream of their 2017 EP, An Abstract and Metaphysical Approach to Deceit, it’s an honor to help launch their new album Omega Disciples here today. Omega Disciples is the group’s second full-length album and fourth overall release. As usual, you can read on to learn more about the album or scroll below and dive into the early exclusive album stream immediately.
From their inception, SlaveOne has always had an old-school progressive death metal-inspired take on tech death. But An Abstract and Metaphysical Approach to Deceit introduced a different take on their sound that often reminded me of Ulcerate, Behemoth, and Hate Eternal given the EP’s darker and more furious direction. The band has always been intent on continual evolution and Omega Disciples delivers in that regard once again.
On Omega Disciples, SlaveOne makes effective use of a tried-and-true trick for bands with an eclectic body of work by combining their prior 2017 sonic evolution with the earlier more prog-death focused approach of their first two releases. The result makes for the group’s most impressive material to date and an intriguing display of the ingenuity found in bleak and ferocious ideas paired with heady old-school inspired progressive death metal. This isn’t a combination of death metal styles I hear very often in tech-death and it’s even rarer to hear it done as eloquently and memorably as SlaveOne does throughout every song on Omega Disciples.
2020 is off to a very strong start for tech-death and Omega Disciples is almost definitely going to rank as one of my favorites when it comes to sorting the music I loved most at year’s end. So do check out the full album below and order it through Dolorem Records Website or through the label’s Bandcamp Page. You can follow the group over on the SlaveOne Facebook Page.
