Band:	Tao Menizoo
Album:	Journey Through A Devastated Mind
Style:	Alternative metal
Release date:	September 05, 2012
A review by:	R'Vannith

01. Wreckage
02. What If?
03. Your Weakness
04. Released
05. Celebration Day
06. The Lie Within
07. My Shroud, My Scars
08. Messiah
09. My Last Resort
10. So Tired
11. Emotional Control

Uncomfortable and abrasive is the new effort from French industrial thrashers Tao Menizoo. The Journey Through A Devastated Mind is by no means an easy one, it's torturous in fact.

What the band seem keen to do is throw everything they have at you and by this I do really mean everything. Hints of numerous metal subgenres are utilised in this primarily hardcore driven assault on the senses. A very unconventional industrialised thrash is buried within, covered in a coat of garish bits of groove and even stoner. A black metal-like stride in "Your Weakness" is brought forth by tempo, drum and guitar work characteristic of the genre but made anew into something barely distinguishable. As a point of contrast "Messiah" is a rapid propulsion of groove thrash not too distant to Machine Head material. All this sampling of various genres as well as brief piano passages and echoed guitar lines surrounding random spoken interludes advising you about your emotional state make for an extremely chaotic listening experience.

Overall the album has very little coherency and consistency in structure to allow for the listener to attach themselves. When it does come together it can do so in very interesting ways but are often overplayed giving the record a very unstructured sound interspersed with recycled moments of accessibility. Some elements are more difficult to digest than others, the hardcore style shouts especially are like trying to swallow a razor blade as they by no means make the listening experience any easier. A tumultuous atmosphere is present in many tracks which houses all this untethered chaos within the song writing and giving the listener some sense of scope to grapple with.

This uneasy mind makes for uneasy listening and will likely never sit at all comfortably with you once experienced.