Noisem is a band that some took to and some didn't quite get when they released their PhD grade banger Agony Defined. Some saw didn't see the magic in it and dismissed it as another death/thrash album that remained rooted in the past. Yeah, Agony Defined was a nod to the rip, roaring past and my second favorite album of 2013. However, once you blew the dust off the vinyl jacket you discovered a band that not only performed well and shredded like a cheese grater, but you also found a band that was loaded with potential.
There's two things a lot of labels do that I hate: harping on the age of young musicians that apparently write music out of their age limitations (or so that's what people make it sound like) and comparing new albums to classics that can't possibly be touched (remember when Fear Before the March of Flames Always Open Mouth was compared to Refused's The Shape of Punk to Come? Yeah, that happened). When I'm wrong about either of these things, I'll concede. And while I'm not going to compare Noisem's Blossoming Decay to any grindcore or death metal classics, I will say that this is the first time I've ever heard the words “bright future of metal” and nodded in stern agreement. If you feel like the hype around this album has burned a hole in your expectations and sent them straight to Hell, I say go down with them. It's worth noting now: this sounds nothing like Agony Defined.
Noisem has been noted for their death/thrash approach with dueling call-and-response solos that would sound perfectly at home on a Repulsion and Slayer mash up. Blossoming Decay tosses aside the standard for stronger grindcore approach. The band has rooted themselves more in the ethos of a hardcore/punk attitude and taken a more aggressive attitude. Where they were once splitting heads from the inside out, they're not bashing in skulls with a bat. The opener “Trial of Perturbation” is a volatile beater that takes its time fading in before turning into a full scale assault that you could file a battery charge against. The growth in sound is immediately recognizable and tells us in the few tracks they'd teased before (“1132” and Graining Enamel”) that this isn't bullshit. Not to mention “Hostile End / Hollow Life” and “Replant / Repress” are two tracks that would make even the most aggressive hardcore/punk bands shit themselves (Slapshot excluded).
Noisem haven't just grown in their ability to seemingly shift genres and focus more on one than the other, they've also become some moody bastards. Agony Defined was an album that had aggressive fun. Blossoming Decay takes itself out of the death metal mindset of lacerating bodies and focuses itself more on real issues that vocalist Tyler Carnes has dealt with growing up. Songs like “Another Night Sleeping in the Cold” and “Hostile End / Hollow Life” speak for themselves in song title alone. The band comes off as more personal too. The final track “Blossoming of the Web” settles uneasily as it comes to an end, going out quiet and wobbly, but ugly and festering. A grand statement that this is far from over.
There's not a full abandonment of the slaughtering sound that Agony Defined brought to the table. Though along with the moodiness that Blossoming Decay puts forth, it also remembers its roots. Hell, the album begins with the same crash cymbal as Agony Defined. “Cascade of Scars” is a slow starter that dives back into that old death/thrash, still feeling fresh and ready to strip the listener's skin and muscle straight to the bone. “Burning” has a similar approach but more to the point. Guitarist Sebastian Phillips and bassist-turned-guitarist Yago Ventura still hang heavy on their thrash influences but never too heavy. Solos aren't uncommon but also don't take up the chunk of songs they did.
If you weren't sold on Noisem before Blossoming Decay will make or break you. The musicianship is far more varied and the songs bang even harder. Noisem is also a band that one needn't call a hybrid. They're not reinventing the wheel, or looking to turn genres on their heads'. They simply write some the best metal music around. Yes, they are one of the best examples of the future of metal. Possibly the best. They're old school and doing things their way.
