Despised Icon - The Healing Process
Century Media
A Technical Death, Grind and Hardcore Infusion
9 songs ()
Release year: 2005
Despised Icon, Century Media
Reviewed by Jason
Surprise of the month

There was a time when I wasn’t particularly fond the metal scene here in Quebec. The majority of bands were grind oriented and you’d seldom find a band that thought out of the box or produced something Metal that wasn’t on the extreme spectrum of brutality. Simply said, I was beginning to get tired of the local music and I’d think to myself “God damn! This crazy Canadian province has so many talented musicians, but all they do is release album after album of brutal/unoriginal grindcore-esque music”. Well, it appears that times are changing and a handful of bands making fresh music that builds on the established brutal foundation. I won’t start listing bands, but one thing I know is that Despised Icon is one of the bands that has stayed true to the past but has successfully managed to expand the horizons of metal and bring forth something new and destructive at the same time.

With former members from bands such as Neuraxis, Necrotic Mutation, and In Dying Days you would expect Despised Icon’s music to sound like a combination of technical death, grind and hardcore – and amazingly this is exactly the case. The reason why I say this is amazing is because Despised Icon’s music is a perfect balance of the three genres of music I mentioned, and there is not really one type of music that overpowers the other. One second you’ll have an utterly brutal pacing hardcore riff, the next second the tune will seamlessly transform itself into a flurry of blast beats and grunts, but when you least expect it, the song will change once again into something closer to technical death. Although I hail the occasional brutal technical hardcore band like Converge and The Dillinger Escape Plan because their randomness and disregard for predictability, I have to criticize their lack of structure which eventually rails against my brain after prolonged listens. Though Despised Icon may randomly change their tempo and catch you off guard, they manage to keep a certain structure intact that solidifies the idea that though the band is trying to be brutal and technical, they aren’t simple making music for the sake of being random.

From start to finish, the disc is absolutely relentless, seldom leaving the listener a break to recuperate from all the destructive riffs. The tracks are also relatively short in length for a metal album, ranging between 2 ½ to 4 minutes in length. Though this may be a very strong debut for Despised Icon, of course, not everything is perfect. Perhaps my biggest complaint about the album is that there is a very small difference between tracks on the album. There is constant variation within the songs but they more or less follow the same structure, making it difficult to differentiate one track from another.

In all, this is a hell of a debut for the Montreal based band that calls themselves Despised Icon. Their ability to fuse death, grind and hardcore seamlessly is a fantastic feat and I am eager to see how this band with progress with time. In the meantime, for those of you who like relentlessly brutal music that still manages to be technical, pick this album up, you won’t be disappointed.

Killing Songs :
Silver Plated Advocate, Bullet Proof Scales, The Sunset Will Never Charm Us
Jason quoted 81 / 100
Other albums by Despised Icon that we have reviewed:
Despised Icon - Day Of Mourning reviewed by Goat and quoted 83 / 100
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