Band:	Paroxysmal
Album:	Force Feeder
Style:	Brutal death metal, Technical death metal
Release date:	June 30, 2023
A review by:	musclassia

01. Awaiting Eruption
02. Ageless / Deathless [feat. Trevor Strnad]
03. Inner Absence
04. Moments Of Clarity And Insignificance
05. Elucidating Countless Voices
06. Hurled Endlessly Into The Black
07. Force Feeder

I’ve listened to enough metal by now to know which albums in weekly release round-ups I can safely assume I will not find myself delving deeply into. Of these, albums tagged as ‘brutal death’ with gory covers and convoluted band logos are arguably the ones that consistently offer the least appeal to me, particularly given how numerous they are, yet Paroxysmal’s Force Feeder somehow managed to overcome my prejudices.

This is the first album released under the Paroxysmal name, but that’s only because the group formerly known as Paroxysmal Butchering rebranded earlier this year. The project is a long-running one masterminded by Tim Ballard, along with a revolving door of musicians; the current iteration appears to be a 3-piece, including long-time guitarist Josh Alvarado and less long-time drummer Billy T. Boy. The group’s earlier albums were unambiguously brutal death/deathgrind, with the short songs and gory titles to match, but 2019’s Amygdala represented something of a stylistic expansion, and with their change in name, Paroxysmal have evolved that sound further.

Force Feeder is very much a death metal album at heart, but brutality, while very much still present across its runtime, is not the defining feature; a decent portion of this record is more grounded in tech-death, while there’s also some moments that are almost slightly atmospheric. With 4 of 7 tracks breaching the six-minute mark (including a closing title track that crosses the 10-minute barrier), there’s also a progressive slant to aspects of the writing here, although progressive death metal this most certainly is not. There’s also blackened touches to the album; some of the tremolo riffing in “Ageless/Deathless” (which features the late, great Trevor Strnad as a guest) has a blackened edge, even if the riffing as a whole is much closer to Necrophagist-style tech-death.

Does all this mean that the reason I unexpectedly like Paroxysmal’s Force Feeder is because it turned out to not be the brutal death that I anticipated? To be completely frank, it is a large part of it; I am far more inclined towards tech-death than brutal death. However, the record hasn’t abandoned those brutal roots, and when that side of their sound does emerge, such as during some of the vile poundings in the otherwise lively and intense “Inner Absence”, the relative rarity of those guitar squeals and putrid growls makes their impact more emphatic than on an album dominated by such sounds.

Additionally, while Force Feeder isn’t strictly ‘brutal’ in the genre sense of the term, it is a ferociously aggressive album; outside of a couple of brief snippets in which the music is allowed to breathe or a faint hint of melody emerges amidst the chaos, this album is constantly on the attack, and it has solid riffs to back up the violence, along with some impressively elaborate instrumental work (“Elucidating Countless Voices” particularly stands out on this front). A track where everything comes together quite nicely is “Hurled Endlessly Into The Black”; there’s full-pelt extremity, there’s tasty grooves, there’s meaner brutality, there’s tech riffs with almost a slightly evocative tone to them which moves into slower, quieter contemplation, and a strong guitar solo capping everything off.

I don’t think Force Feeder is necessarily a standout release in death metal, or even tech-death, this year; moments on it reminded me a bit of Cave Bastard’s Wrath Of The Bastard in mixing brutal, tech and prog-death, and it’s not got the memorability or impact of that album, but it is nevertheless a good release, and quite an ambitious one with that 10-minute title track. The amount of time dedicated on this song to more measured scene-building at the beginning is something that might be worth exploring on a greater scale on subsequent releases, along with the greater range of riffs on “Force Feeder” that at different stages of the song prioritize technicality, hookiness, atmospheric texture or pure intensity; it’s definitely the highlight of the album.

Still, while there’s aspects of their songwriting that they might want to tweak or prioritize their attention towards on subsequent releases to continue their upward musical trajectory, there’s only one specific thing that I’d like to see changed next time out. The endings to the last two songs fall a bit flat for me; they stop without a clear purpose and then move into minutes of near-silent ambient noise; it really dampens their impact for me! I hope next time that the epic tracks are granted conclusions that give a real sense of completeness and finality.