And Hell Followed With – Proprioception
Release Date: 2010Jun29 (US)
Label: Earache Records
Rating: 2/5
No, I cannot resist talking about the relationship between this album’s cover art and the meaning of ‘proprioception’ itself. Besides being aware of expending effort to move body parts, it also provides information about the relative location of these parts to one another. For example, the finger-to-nose exercise that cops use in sobriety tests actually tests proprioception itself, because intoxication impairs this ability. So it seems the naked demon chick not only propriocepts her intestines, she seems to biokinetically control them like the cloak of Spawn. Well that’s nice… and no, it has little to do with the album’s contents.
Here is something I am completely sick of: pointless intros on Metal albums. They are usually as interesting and necessary as a drum solo. It becomes all the more questionable when you actually like the ideas they build, but relegate to standard-fare for the first proper track. This is true of “Mara”, which devolves into “The Night is the Coroner’s”. You can tell AHFW wants to turn heads with their gang chorus of “My hands around your neck / Your teeth embedded in my flesh” but the interesting part was actually the clean guitar solo, which they do not bother to develop properly, and thus falls flat. This is much of the case with the first half of Proprioception, which sounds heavily harvested from The Black Dahlia Murder.
Not till a couple minutes into “Dismantle” did I begin to really take notice. The airy guitar work creates a space for an erratic spoken word rant that makes way for the big finish. Now that they had my attention, AHFW chose to dole out both solid riffs and––can it be?––convincing breakdowns throughout “One of the Swarm”. Then, just when it seems they spent their last nickel, “Those Now Sleep Forever” comes lumbering in, speeds with some solid core, and actually has beautiful guitar work towards the end. It proves to be one of the best tunes on Proprioception.
But I am baffled as to why a band would balance their album this way, as if performing the dead man’s float, using their midsection to stay buoyant. And Hell Followed With lost their vocalist after recording, but before releasing this second full-length; perhaps they should actually take a cue from this album title and gain a deeper understanding of how they now interrelate before their next effort.
FCC: 5, 8
Try: 6, 7, 9
01. Mara
02. The Night is the Coroner’s
03. Deadworld Reclamation
04. In Vastness I Transfigure
05. Rotting Procession
06. Dismantle
07. One of the Swarm
08. A Welcome Displeasure
09. Those Now Sleep Forever
10. From Burning Sentiments
11. VenomSpitter
12. Perpetual Abyssma