Malignancy - ...Discontinued

Malignancy is a brutal technical death metal band from Yonkers, New York who formed in 1992.  Their latest release, “...Discontinued,” is their fifth full-length album, in addition to a number of demos, EPs, and splits. 

Their music is some of the more brutal death metal I’ve heard this year but it's presented with a technical flair that most other BDM bands just can’t match.   The riffs in particular are insane—fast and unrelenting but ever changing with an unstoppable energy.  Much could be said for the bass and drums, that despite their leanings towards insatiable violence, are anything but caveman riffs.  This is smartly written music that just happens to be insanely intense.

The production is much cleaner than a lot of death metal I’ve heard this year.  It shouldn’t work, but it does.  When the music is so out there in extremity yet mind boggling with its presentation, a slightly shinier layer of auditory nightmares is needed to capture the essence of each sickening moment. 

The album opens with the absolute banger “Existential Dread,” and within about twenty seconds fully displays what the band was going for.  The way the drums and bass dance around the insane riffs is maddening, the song (and album as a whole) teetering on the edge of insanity.  The vocals are deep but with tightly controlled inflection that makes them much of a blast as the music they barrel through. Around the 1:50 mark a primordial scream rips through the riffs as the band decides to take the phrase, “pulverizing meat grinder,” and runs with it.  

Should music this  unrelenting be catchy?  “Irradiated Miscreation,” answers it with a bloody and bruised “hell yes,” because every riff in this song is awesome.  The song has just enough groove to make the transitions from each moment to the next memorable.  The drums in particular go for broke….sounding like, at any minute, the kit might fall apart and melt down the song to nothingness.

The briefest of respites comes in the form of a sound bite that opens the first 57 seconds of “Ancillary Biorhythms.”  The band quickly makes up for lost time with a twisted, frenzied maze of technical prowess that shakes the foundations of the song to the very core.  It gets built over the next two and a half minutes with tower death growls and harrowing screams leading the way towards a burning utopia of caustic rhythms.

“Decomposing Divinity,” sounds like the mental breakdown of a person questioning everything they thought they knew.  As the madness eats away their senses and they lose who they are, these ruins don’t dissolve but instead reshape and form into a new form of clarity.   What I’m trying to say is listen from the 2:21 mark and all the way to the end:  guitars, bass and drums driving home a frightening symphony of chaos as it slowly winds down to hit another climax soon after. 

The last song, “Biological Absurdity,” is beyond ridiculous and I mean that in a good way.  The song represents the epitome of the album’s sound:  rabid death metal that pummels and shreds but with precision pain and focus. 

MALIGNANCY have crafted an unique album that happens to live in two worlds;  technical and brutal without being too far into either style.  There is a lot of appeal with “...Discontinued,” because it’s going to be something that lovers of extreme music will enjoy but even those with more discerning tastes will find much to digest as well.