No matter how much money and success that an Angry Metal Guy review can help bestow upon a band, sales play only part of the hard-to-achieve role of financial forwarding in a band’s life. Back in 2017, the esteemed Kronos demanded not once but twice that you turn to Massachusetts-born death troupe Replacire with open minds and wallets to find a fruitful footing. But the journey from then to today has been hard for many. Just as Replacire seemed to be taking hold of the road and recording future, a tour-less 2020 emerged and heavily stalled the album they have finally delivered here, The Center That Cannot Hold. Born of that strife, setback, and the persistence of Replacire’s heart, guitarist Eric Alper,1 this follow-up from its extended incubation oozes with an extra layer of sophistication.
Replacire has always held a tactical yet jaw-dropping array of tricks, though, as Alper himself formed the act pulling from his Berklee College of Music companions. And while none remain from the initial line-up, that educational connection has gifted most of the current cast, who—lead guitarist Poh Hock aside (ex-Native Construct)—also forms the majority of Black Crown Initiate’s performing pieces.2 Notably, at the mic, James Dorton (Black Crown Initiate) displays a visceral and frothing growl-bark on tracks that would leave a lesser vocalist gasping (“The Center That Cannot Hold,” “Inglorious Impurity”), amongst it all breaking into dreamy and forlorn clean passages that give this loaded landscape some breathing room (“Drag Yourself Along the Earth,” “Hoard the Trauma Like Wealth,” “Uncontrolled and Unfulfilled”). Together, each member breathes in crooked time with the other as if they’ve been doing it all for years—in truth they have, at this point. For as dizzying as The Center is, its twists present addictive challenges.
The Center That Cannot Hold by Replacire
This trained and talented cast leans toward technicality often, as any follower of Replacire would expect, but few are the moments throughout that lead without a firm and fervent rhythmic center. Whether this album comes from a different blend of influences than 2017’s Do Not Deviate, The Center leans on the kind of aggressive groove you would hear poppin’ off in an early Decapitated plug (“Living Hell,” “Inglorious Impurity”) or Terra Incognita-era Gojira chug (“Transfixed on the Work”). Don’t get me wrong, that math-y, tempo-jostled tug-and-shove riffcraft still presents itself aplenty—have fun counting the teeth-shattering blast that whips “Bloody-Tongued and Screaming” macerates your meatuses. But, as that tumble too shifts, moments of neck-challenging riffs bleed into mathematically sensible passages for the yin to the yang that so often overloads the spirit of this strain of death metal. The title track even flirts about a simple yet devious breakbeat before settling and hammering in a frantic, grind-minded, out-of-breath riff-sprint.
However, holding true to the tenets set forth by the genre’s forefathers of excess and execution, The Center remains dense enough to both create its own gravitational pull and potential collapse. At the surface, Replacire has pulled back on certain types of experimentation—piano backings and the like—but both Alper’s percussive playfulness and Hock’s virtuosic whimsy ensure that each cut comes loaded with enough guitar sounds to load replays with pauses, squinting ears, and wonder. Particularly after “Drag Yourself…” Hock’s quantity of snappy, melodic fills and Greg Howe-flavored, never over-placed solos increases at a breezy and bewildering pace, allowing the back half of The Center to grip in a different manner. In an album this packed, a couple of the lesser tracks drift into the background as each new flurry of alien notes and terrestrial chord stabs blinds the senses—but one slammer’s lull may be another’s fixation.
As a labor of years delayed through a time period that felt like decades, The Center That Cannot Hold unravels as a smorgasbord of rifftacular, heartily-stewed ideas. The creative process can be such that fusing grand Opeth-ian ideas into the jagged and tight structure of a Veil of Maya (“Living Hell,” “Hoard…”) groove yields both heavy hits and deep confusion. But Replacire lives for the climb, and famously slick engineer Jens Bogren has bestowed an extra meaty sheen to this overstuffed platter. Those who fiend for the chomp at a polyrhythmic puzzle that’s equally mosh-ready as it is quiz-ready will find deathly flesh and noodly marrow aplenty. Don’t forget to chew, though.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist | Bandcamp
Website: replacire.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/replacire
Releases Worldwide: June 21st, 2024
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