Digital Veil not quite heavy enough for you? Have no fear, for progressive deathcore outfit Born of Osiris has just released what might be one of the best albums of the fledging year. Since the shaking release of the uncompromising Rosecrance in 2007, the band has been steadily growing in musical prowess. Though glimpses of their genius have shown on tracks like “Now Arise” and “Abstract Art,” the full realization of their expansive vision and musicianship has not quite been explored. Until now that is. Born of Osiris’ newest album, The Discovery, launches the band into new heights of composition that is as technical as it is crushingly brutal.
The Discovery is, if anything else, a musical and lyrical journey that expands upon the concepts explored in A Higher Place. Born of Osiris utilizes their ubiquitous palm-muted djent style breakdowns to crushing effect throughout the album, showing that the aggressive, extremely heavy riffing that characterized their earlier work is still present. However, the band begins to lace this playing with disembodied guitar work, complex soloing, and beautiful soundscapes that create an atmosphere that, for such an intense sound, create an amazing harmonious album. In fact, this seems to be the source of Born’s fully developed design. They have the ability to create songs that begin fundamentally as a deathcore work, but develop with the careful layering of ambient keyboard work, unsettling melodies, and gradual decays into introspection, a highly complex piece of progressive metal.
Musically, Born of Osiris writes distinctively and with much intricacy. Using odd time signatures and disturbing yet melodious lines over cutting start stop riffing, the band sets such a unique sound to the whole album that it draws comparisons to another metal masterpiece. In the words of Chandler Greenwell, “(The Discovery) is as brutal as Nocturne was awe inspiring.” As the breakdown in “Follow The Signs” crashes, accompanied by rapid arpeggios, the listener sees immediately that this is true. Indeed, the guitar work on this album is very impressive. The eccentric and incorporeal lines on “Recreate,” the gliding sweeps on “XIV,” and the slower soloing on “Shaping the Masterpiece” all showcase young, creative guitarists with a knack for artistry (though every song could be noted for astonishing guitar.). At the same time, the muted, breakdown riffing shows a definite knowledge for construction, or rather deconstruction, that was reached a long time ago.
Born of Osiris has always pleaded with their listeners to seek enlightenment in some form, by smashing barriers and bringing down the towers of empires. The Discovery is no exception, as its name implies, and the plight and hope of the power of the human spirit is clearly seen in artist Cameron Gray’s lush album artwork. A more fitting parallel I could not imagine, and as the magnificent, sadly soaring opera of “The Omniscient” quietly illuminates, it’s hard to not see the grandeur of the band’s visualization. Its moments like these that make the album, the quite meditative transitions that link the vicious distorted anger that characterize the main body of work. When vocalist Ronnie Canizaro gutturally screams “Closed eyes will never open,” you sense both his frustration and his intense desire to redesign, which is undoubtedly a predominate theme in his writing.
The Discovery is an eccentric and exceptional piece of music that is both brutally devastating and philosophically contemplative. It is arguably a masterpiece, and undeniably is so in Born of Osiris’ small but powerful discography. Like Digital Veil, The Discovery offers the thinking man’s metal, but perhaps to a more envisioned and impassioned man, with an intense desire to recreate that which surrounds him.
Key Tracks: “Follow The Signs” “Behold” “Two Worlds Of Design”
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