Review: Deconstructing Sequence – Cosmic Progression An Agonizing Journey Through Oddities of Space

It was 2013 when we first encountered Deconstructing Sequence here at Moshville Times – almost four and a half years ago now. At the time, they had only released their EP, Year One, though the three tracks on it still ran for almost 25 minutes. You guessed it, this is a prog band of some type! In 2014, they followed this up with a 2-track effort, Access Code.

The description used by the band back then was “Black / Death / Progressive / Avant- Garde” and Cosmic Progression is chock full of all of those. The “Agonizing Journey” could also relate to the length of time it’s taken to get this album out. A quick look at the liner notes shows that the guitars were laid down in April 2015, the drums in February 2016, bass the following month and vocals in December of the same year. Final mixing and mastering was done in November last year to create the CD that arrived in the post last week. That’s a long time in development!

I am very happy to say that it’s been worth it. One look at the cover art or title and you’ll know you’re in sci-fi territory here, but there’s nothing hugely “John Carpenter” or keyboard heavy. There are a few vocal samples thrown in for atmosphere, and synth is used sparingly, but mainly any unusual sounds are the result of production techniques and – I assume – a staggering array of guitar pedals. Lyrical content is definitely very much in the astronomy nerd category, though. “V4641 Sgr”, for instance, tells us of a black hole’s event horizon, “incredibly dense, unforgiving force”. V4641 Sagittarii, a binary star system, was discovered to contain a black hole in 1999 – at the time the closest known one to Earth. Wikipedia is great, by the way.

The whole album is a great mix of incredibly fast and heavy drums, soaring chords, frazzling riffs and chilling vocals. Even the slower bits exhaust you – there’s always something pushing the pace along at a ridiculous rate. There are so many layers to the sound, too, that repeated listens are a necessity to get the most from each song. With only one of the tracks hitting the runtime of anything on the earlier EP, they’re all still lengthy but not too long. They’re soundscapes as well as songs, full of interesting tweaks, notes and rhythms.

Deconstructing Sequence are a band I’m very much going to enjoy listening more to while I’m sat at home. I can get lost in Cosmic Progression as there’s so much going on that whatever else I’m doing when the album’s playing, something in the music always distracts me and I end up focussing on it. While these multiple layers and complexities could put some people off, the mixing is great and everything is audible.

Much heavier than I expected, Cosmic Progression is an album that could appeal to a wide range of people. If you’re into death/extreme music and want to expand your (event) horizons then this is one you should check out.

Cosmic Progression is out on on March 16th (changed from January 16th)

Deconstructing Sequence: facebook | myspace | reverbnation | bandcamp | youtube

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