Orbit Culture - Death Above Life

I quite liked the first couple of things that I heard from this band, but it feels like more and more of their albums are turning into boring monotonous chugging; I'm evidently not the target audience of whatever they're aiming for, and their soaring popularity suggests they're doing what they intend to do well, but this album feels like scattered moments of interest or potential squandered by an incredibly dry core sound.

They're obviously very popular and positively critiqued by many for a reason, they just haven't been able to click for me personally. Some heavy chugging, groovy riffs, and breakdowns haven't been able to change my opinion about them here either, I still find their songwriting quite bland and uninspiring tbh, I'm not keen on the production either, I just find it overproduced and a touch soulless, if that makes any sense. Still, I can understand why it might appeal to some.

Written by musclassia on 03.10.2025 at 10:28

I quite liked the first couple of things that I heard from this band, but it feels like more and more of their albums are turning into boring monotonous chugging; I'm evidently not the target audience of whatever they're aiming for, and their soaring popularity suggests they're doing what they intend to do well, but this album feels like scattered moments of interest or potential squandered by an incredibly dry core sound.

This. You've covered me 95%. The other 5% is the overproduction. it's waaaay too much.

Clean vocals are criminal. The rest isn't much better either.

It sounds good, but I feel like it's their first step backward. I can only salvage a few songs, but most of them don't convey much.

The whiny vocals and the whole metalcore vibe kills it for me

I love the songs but don't really like the production quality, way too compressed and the clipping is nearly as bad as Death Magnetic original release was...