July 31, 2012 • Black Market Activities
I have no clue why I tried out this album; I generally have no interest in mathcore / metalcore and haven't liked most of what I've heard in the past. Gaza may be a turning point for me; while they may not be too different from other extreme metalcore bands they do seem to have something pretty cool going on with this album.
No Absolutes is, first and foremost, really ugly and dirty music—the guitar is downtuned to hell and has a grimy tone to it; the raw, guttural vocals have a distorted edge to them, and the drums are absolutely monstrous with trading off between punkish grooves and some pretty damn intense blastbeats. I've heard plenty of extreme music in my time, obviously, but as far as stuff in the punk family goes this is sitting comfortably near, if not at, the top of the list.
At the same time, they'll pull out a calmer and more emotional moment now and again (comparatively speaking, of course). These sections really mesh with the faster parts well—both contrasting with and accentuating the album's normal intensity and standing up on their own as good examples of sludge/doom. Take "When They Beg"'s slow and brooding end, or the title track's churning sludgy sound, or the slow doomy end of "Not with All the Hope in the World"—especially the way the latter calms the listener down a bit, only to basically smack them in the face again once "The Vipers" starts up. It's pretty great.
You might need to be in the right frame of mind for Gaza—one that is prepared to accept some pretty high levels of brutality—but it is definitely worth the ride and has helped rekindle my interest in the genre a bit. Not for everyone, but I'll definitely take it.
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