ALBUM REVIEW: Aberrant Calamity – Prion

PRION have two and a half decades of history. First appearing in Buenos Aires in 1994, they have only released four studio albums in the time since. With an average of five to seven years between each album, the band walks the fine line between using the extended periods between records to perfect their craft, and simply being left by the wayside, forgotten by the genre at large. Their most recent offering of the four, Aberrant Calamity, could not do more to encapsulate the razor’s edge down which the band seems to tread.

It is both excessively easy, and excruciatingly difficult to craft a death metal album in this day and age. Easy, in that the style has been established in its most concrete form by countless previous records of both dubious and, conversely, undoubted quality. One does not need to think too hard on what is necessary and quintessential to the death metal genre, for all has been laid out before, like some macabre family feast. But it is excruciatingly difficult to do for those exact same reasons. All bases have thus far been covered, and without delving into one of death metal’s myriad sub-genres, it is a tough push to achieve a musical offering wholly unique.

Aberrant Calamity is an album that seems as though it was die-cast by a disinterested metalworker who had built his metaphorical mould from a checklist of generic death metal conventions. It is clear from the outset, that though the band has a lengthy career under their belts, they have done little to evolve their sound over the years. Though their music has grown a little more mature, and a little more stylistic, they do not seem to deem it necessary to expand much further than the rigid boundaries of the death metal genre. It ultimately comes off as stale, derivative, generic, and unimaginative.

Of course, death metal is a sprawling genre, with a nebulous list of sub-genres marching behind its standard. Now that death metal has been a firm concept for nearing four decades, it seems almost fanciful to think that one could continue to emulate the greats of the 1980s and 90s without branching out. The fact remains that this is an album that decided it was death metal before the first note was played. That does, naturally, have its advantages. It appeals to a core audience that still has a soft spot for the days of yore, when merely slapping power chords over blast beats was enough to satiate thirsts of fans the world over.

However, the key advantage of this album is that it is not complicated. There are no questions as to its identity, nor its intent. For fans of plain and simple death metal, no questions asked, it would make a fine addition to their collection. It is good at what it is, but the issue is that they have cast their net too wide, and thus PRION are not specific enough to focus on any one key market. Aberrant Calamity is worth listening to if one merely wants low production quality and churning riffs of passable originality, but offers no new vigour to an ageing genre now approaching a midlife slump.

Rating: 5/10

Aberrant Calamity is out now via Comatose Music.

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