We All Die (Laughing) – Thoughtscanning
In the past, we gentlemen at Deaf Sparrow have complained about bands trying to be too progressive and adding all these batshit ideas into their music creating a heaping midget orgy of poorly constructed songs, strange fetishes, and no singular idea of who is fucking who and whatnot. If you’ve ever watched Human Centipede or Human Centipede 2 and really just was dumbstruck at what the fuck was going on, well, we feel the same way over here every single day listening to some of the CDs we receive. Naturally, we were hesitant to review an album that was described as “Avant-garde progressive metal” on Metal Archives. Questions like “What genre?,” “Who is doing what?,” and “Is that an instrument?” often arise in these cases but all our fears have been abated. We All Die (Laughing) who are aptly named after a track by the post metal/drone band The Angelic Process, have created a very cinematic experience with Thoughtscanning. The album mostly consists of the self titled track “Thoughtscanning,” unless you have the CD with their cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Back To Black,” so most of the focus of this review will be regarding “Thoughtscanning.”
To begin, this album is cinematic in the same sense that people feel when listening to Swallow the Sun’s Plague of Butterflies. We are introduced to the protagonist, the antagonist, the problem and all of the same emotional conjurations that often sought after in films. It undulates with incredible highs, melancholic lows, aggressive blast beats, fucking clarinets, and vocals that transcend metal. There are only two members of the band and both do vocal duties and cover all genres of metal including black, power, groove, death, etc,.. and fucking kill it. Throughout all three listens (“Thoughtscanning” is 33 minutes long so 99 beautiful minutes), there was never a chance to critique the vocals. They even pull off a better depressive black metal howl than most depressive black metal bands at around nineteen minutes. Understandably it can be hard to maintain focus on such a long song but the hooks and riffs Deha, the man behind all the instrumentation, creates and conjures is pretty unreal. There are certainly some more dull moments but for the majority of the song, it seems in a strange way, is so fluid it feels nearly flawless, which is a big word around here to drop. Towards the end of the song, they make a nod to the first few minutes to quickly build up big, powerful moments to only sweep you away deeper into the musical tide where the sand barely stirs. In the end, there is almost a fatiguing feel to it like the adventure is over but God damn was it good. Fuck, even they managed to turn an Amy Winehouse song into something listenable (which isn’t the case in the first place with Winehouse).
The only creative criticism that can thought of is if you’re going to name yourself after a song by the Angelic Process, perhaps you should toss in some good drone moments here and there. Some quasi drone moments midway or towards the end of the song could have been pretty surprising and would have added to the cinematic feel even more. Other than that, this is a top dollar album and shouldnotbefuckedwith. These guys came out with Thoughtscanning this year and are already releasing a split within the next few months so stay tuned to their Facebook or Bandcamp page for details.
We All Die (Laughing) Official Facebook
Written by Cole Olson
We All Die (Laughing) – Thoughtscanning
Kaotoxin Records
5 / 5
