Despite their innocently angelic faces, the young foursome comprising Norwich, England's
the Boy Will Drown are not to be trifled with. Their music matches the unparalleled brutality of grindcore with an astounding technicality on par with the top American math metal bands, while their song titles (most obviously opening number "Deep Throat") promise overt sexuality in keeping with their debut album's title,
Fetish, but deliver horrific and violent perversions of the same, seemingly derived from a serial killer's warped point of view. For example: the horrific case of father Josef and daughter Elisabeth Fritzl (where the former kept the latter captive for 20 years of sexual abuse) is granted two horrific songs here, both filled with incredibly disturbing lyrics; and additional cuts like "Irminsul" and "Dead Girls (Don't Say No)" follow close behind in terms of provocative creepiness. The band also embarks on more traditional areas of metallic nihilism, as well, though, and it must be said that the sheer complexity of their musical logarithms -- not to mention the fury with which they are projected -- ultimately ensures that listeners are left bloodied, beaten, and disoriented, in their wake, but, thankfully not quite annihilated. Although, ironically, with linear rhythms and straightforward mosh passages so few and far between, this is music that only seriously mind-f**ked individuals like those profiled in its lyrics could possibly have sex to!
Fetish is certainly never dull, that's for sure, even if only a very limited selection of extreme metal enthusiasts will be able to withstand its fearsome onslaught, or make heads or tail of its Byzantine complexities. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia