Derelict – Versus Entropy
Release Date: 21st June 2024
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Technical Death Metal, Death Metal.
FFO: Revocation, Allegeon, Cryptopsy.
Review By: Andy Spoon
Canadian Tech Death outfit Derelict are set to release their first full length album in over a decade, stimulated by sporadic collaborations between members across great distances. Versus Entropy is a great blend of the band’s influences in old school death, thrash, and prog/technical death metal. Combining their life experiences with world issues and industry matters (Re: Trevor Strnad), Derelict’s June 21st self-released album is a testament to the continuation of a major Canadian death metal project that is worthy of note as it really seeks to show the band’s remaining fervour for quality production and expression along with current world matters that strike a chord with the members, having lived a generation of life away from the grind, only to return with new perspectives and tastes.
I think that a good way to describe the band is a combination of the tech death stylings of bands like Allegeon and Cryptopsy with the older-school vocal style of bands like Death, something that could really appeal to fans of both styles. The overall recording quality is excellent for being a self-released album. I think that I really appreciated the drum tracks and how they were mixed into the entire production, with clean kicks and snares to give a nice metronome to the tracks. It ends up lending itself to the “tech-y” side of the tech death offering. There’s a concerted effort to dig into the progressive guitar and bass work with dissonant harmonies, technical riffs, and even jazzy interludes that have mellow drums and clean guitars.
It’s clear that Derelict is going for the brutality that comes with the Six Feet Under and Death styles of music, but also wants to add the modern and progressive attack that you’d hear with bands like First Fragment or Archspire. While the tech side of the album isn’t necessarily on the same level as FF or Archspire, it definitely comes from the same school of thought and execution, giving credence to my earlier sentiment that this is going to appeal to fans of older school vocals with modern stylings.
One of the interesting things that makes the album unique and enjoyable is the short, sometimes, sporadic breakdowns of “jazzy” riffs and interludes that are peppered throughout the album. It sometimes reminds me of how Cephalic Carnage executed the same, or even perhaps Haken, who has mastered the genre-flip in the middle of a track. I was really interested in the bass guitar on the album, which was particularly-good during those little interlude moments. As a result, it made me dig-in a little more to the rest of the album to hear Sebastien Pittet’s contributions as a musician, something that I was genuinely impressed-by as a tech/prog junkie. I think that for this being a self-produced album, the quality is genuinely great, leaving me with very little to comment on.
Overall, I found the album to definitely be above average and impressive for the most part. I think that the band is trying to stay out of its own way, hoping to reward their loyal fans for the long wait between albums. In the band’s press release, they even commented on how this wasn’t really a project of their own devising, rather, something that just happened as a continued collaboration as the records had been put “on ice” for a very long time. The band was hoping to release something for an anniversary date, leading up to more collaborations. I think that there are some excellent tracks on the album that end up being marquee tracks, while there are some others that aren’t meant to be that serious, or might be written to pay homage to the earlier days of the band’s existence.
Best Track – Workhorse
(3.5 / 5)
