Review : FLESHWROUGHT – “Dementia/Dyslexia”

Fleshwrought – Dementia/Dyslexia
Release Date: 2010Aug03
Label: Metal Blade
Rating: 4.5/5

A trend of technical showmanship has crept its way out of the shadows and into the mainstream metal scene. The days of Lars Ulrich clanging away on the crash and snare clumsily have passed. Nowadays, everyone who is anyone must have absurdly tight and fast drums, wildly complex and dissonant solos, and funky bass work. Bands like Necrophagist have paved the way for this movement to escape the dirty, grimy, thrashy death metal (which I really miss, to be honest) toward a modern metallic renaissance.

One of the most recent addtions to the Technical Death Metal pool is Fleshwrought: the brain child of Animosity/Animals As Leaders drummer, Navene Kopperweis. Now that Animosity has come and gone, Kopperweis finally had the time to focus on his solo project and recruit Job For A Cowboy‘s resident growler, Johnny Davy. The product of these two individuals is phenomenal.

Fleshwrought offers balls-to-the-wall brutal technical death metal, but also channels a rare creative streak, demonstrating excellent writing and instrumental mastery from someone known only for drumming proficiency. Everything from Meshuggah-esque time signatures (“Mental Illness”) to jazzy saxophone solos (“Inner Thoughts”) can be found on this album. Navene Kopperweis has truly soaked up influence from every band he has ever been around and put it to use on Dementia/Dyslexia. On top of the flawless instrumental work, we hear Johnny Davy’s strongest vocals to date, resulting in one of the best rookie efforts in recent history. Fleshwrought has literally emerged as one of the top tech death bands in metal today. Do not miss this album.

FCC OK

01. Mental Illness
02. Inner Thoughts
03. Programming the Herds
04. Weeping Hallucinations
05. Conceptual Flesh
06. State of Desolation
07. Dyslexic Interlude
08. Self-Destructive Loathing
09. Relevant Intoxication
10. Final Nausea