Psychogenesist - Celestial Destiny
Self-released
Brutal Death / Grind
4 songs (11:01)
Release year: 2007
Reviewed by Kyle
Archive review

Where exactly do I begin this review? I mean, I just reviewed Dying Fetus’ latest only two weeks ago, a band I was hoping to not have to review again for quite awhile, simply because they’re one of those bands that is difficult to write about after you’ve dissected one album. And now here we have Psychogenesist, another U.S. technical death / grind band that sounds... well, almost just like Dying Fetus. However, it would be hypocritical for me to criticize the band for following too closely to the style of another band, since I’m currently enjoying the new Savage Circus album immensely even though there’s almost nothing to set them apart from Blind Guardian, and Psychogenesist is a fairly young and unsigned band that’s still trying to find its own sound. And hell, I’d being lying to you if I said that I don’t enjoy listening to their debut demo, Celestial Destiny, and truth be told, they do even get one thing right that Dying Fetus has always screwed up, even if Psychogenesist is ultimately inferior to that band.

Along with the obvious Dying Fetus worship, I can detect some subtle influences from the technical death metal scene in Psychogenesist’s sound, particularly from Origin. Though these New Yorkers never quite reach the same levels of blast beating intensity of my fellow Kansas natives, some of the widdly tremolo lines tend to venture into that band’s territory while still keeping the grind-influenced death metal sound of DF. There’s also some subtle soloing present on every song that reminds me a bit of Symbolic / The Sound Of Perseverance-era Death; not in technicality, but in atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the production to be found here isn’t the best, particularly when it comes to the drums. They really do need to be turned down a bit in the mix, and the overall sound needs to be improved; the snare sounds like someone banging away on a kitchen pot, and the double bass drives sound like someone bashing a typewriter in frantic, rhythmic patterns. The guitar riffs, which are mostly all good, are sometimes drowned out because of this, but I do like the fact that you can always hear the low, subtle rumbling of the bass guitar in the background. The lyrical content needs work as well; Typical lyrics about being put down by the system and dealing with posers are found here, though sometimes they do have a sci-fi tinge to them that I’d like to see expanded upon. The fact that the lyrics are often written in a narrative style is also something impressive, as I don’t see it done very often. One last thing Psychogenesist could fix is its song structure; their typical pattern is to repeat a riff four times, and then move onto the next one.

But this brings me to one of the things I like most about Psychogenesist: this condensed songwriting style makes for a sort-of less frantic version of Dying Fetus. While DF is normally content with stringing random riffs together for every song, Pschogenesist has a definite flow to their music, despite its occasional repetition. And though the riffs aren’t quite good enough to tear you away from Dying Fetus, all four songs featured on Celestial Destiny are equally good, and are worth checking out Psychogenesist’s Myspace for if this sounds appealing to you.

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