Fabricant – Drudge to the Thicket
Release Date: 15th September 2023
Label: Profound Lore
Bandcamp
Genre: Dissonant Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, Death Metal.
FFO: Cephalic Carnage, Immolation, Nightmarer, Artificial Brain.
Review By: Eric Wilt
Fabricant is a three-piece from Berkley, California, whose music defies categorization. Consisting of Troy on guitar and vocals, Pendath on drums and synths, and Ryan on bass, Fabricant makes music that incorporates a number of subgenres of death metal, but doesn’t easily fit into any one. Leaning most heavily into dissonant death metal, Fabricant’s music is technical, it’s atmospheric, it whips and winds around riffs and motifs at a breakneck pace one minute, and it slows to almost doom levels of slowness the next. It’s an album that’s not for the faint of heart or the unadventurous, but if you’re willing to follow a band as they follow their muse, then Drudge to the Thicket is going to make you very happy.
Prey to Whom kicks things off with a fairly straightforward dissonant riff, but don’t let this fool you. Before the song is over, Fabricant is going to melt your mind with cyclical guitar parts that will leave you breathless. Add in a little doom, and you’ve got a song that’s as rewarding as it is challenging. Eloper’s Revelation and Song of Stillness feature riffs that warble and almost sound like the guitar is talking. At times, Demigod Protype reminds me of Immolation, while Disjunct starts out with a bouncy riff that reminds me of Cephalic Carnage. Speaking of Cephalic Carnage, their willingness to experiment with the idea of death metal song structure very much reminds me of what Fabricant is doing on Drudge to the Thicket. The end of Headless slows down to a crawl while Borderland Vigil kicks you in the face with aggression. Adrift the Sleepless Swamp has so many different drum parts that I’m surprised Pendath can keep them straight. I tip my hat to his creative beats and his precision. The title song and Until the Heavens Grow Dark wrap this album up with as much experimental dissonant death metal as the rest of the album, with the latter being a whirlwind of various riffs and parts.
Fabricant has produced an impressive array of experimental death metal that never strays too far away from its dissonant roots. Fans of dissonant, technical, or post death metal will find much to love in the challenging but rewarding Drudge to the Thicket which will be out on September 15, 2023. 
(4 / 5)
