REPLICANT – Infinite Mortality

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://replicant.band/

Most of the time a reviewer generally agrees with others on the quality of reviewed material, differing but in a slightly lower or higher score or a few subjective details, but, every once in a while, one has to stand out from the pack and call an album average when it seems to be universally praised. Such is the case with the 3rd full length by the New Jerseyan brutal avant-garde technical dissonant death metal ensemble, the logically impossibly named Infinite Mortality²⁰²⁴, released on April 12th via Transcending Obscurity Records. While the record is, admittedly, excellently produced and executed, it is seriously suffering from lack of memorable moments, these little needles and pins which compel one to want to experience it over and over again, and, worse yet, it is plagued by the law of diminishing returns so that the more you listen to it the less you want to.

The band started in 2014 as a quartet of current Voidscape and Windfaerer vocalist and guitarist, Michael Gonçalves (vocals; 2017-bass), Peter Lloyd (synthesizers, lead guitars), Tom “TG” (bass-2017) and Matthew Thompson (drums-2019) of which only Gonçalves and Lloyd remain to date. Debuting with Worthless Desires²⁰¹⁶ EP (via PRC Music) followed by the 1st full length Negative Life²⁰¹⁸ (still on PRC Music) Replicant switched labels for Transcending Obscurity Records and acquired current Windfaerer guitarist, Itay Keren (2021-guitars, vocals) for the 2nd album Malignant Reality²⁰²¹ which garnered them some fairly universal praise, completing the lineup with current Voidscape drummer, Justin Spaeth (2023-drums) before releasing Infinite Mortality²⁰²⁴.

As this started as a negative review let’s start with the positive. Roughly half the tracks (5/9) do show some good songwriting chops, particularly the opening Misery Signal-ing and Aftershock-ing (Killswitch Engage protoplasm) “Acid Mirror” with strong Anata-ic melody that could have been more emphasized for a greater impact, the jazzy and psychedelic “Reciprocal Abandonment” evocative of Canadian Martyr, as well as the strongly Immolation-ary closing “Planet Of Skin”, probably my favorite due to structural similarities to the progressive masters Between The Buried And Me, and, had those three tracks been the standard instead of exceptions you would have been looking at a double digit score. Sadly, the deathcorish “Orgasm Of Bereavement”, with a riff very close to Caliban’s “Standup”, the somewhat Machine Head-y and strongly old Pestilence-ian “Pain Enduring” as well as the, again, Immolation-ary “Dwelling On The Threshold” with the annoyingly similar riff to “Orgasm Of Bereavement” (yes, that same one inspired by Caliban’s “Standup”), seem both haphazardly put together and focused only on maximum weirdness and inherent memorability, all of which inspired me to conclude that I, for one, will not become a fan of Replicant.