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PRION
Uncertain Process

Comatose Music (2015)
Rating: 8/10

It’s been seven years since Argentinean death metallers Prion graced my ears. Their 2008 sophomore release Impressions was a healthy update from the 2003 debut Time Of Plagues, but also proof that the trio doesn’t like to rush when it comes to writing material and getting it onto wax.

Of course, when there’s such a huge gap between releases, it can at times feel as if one is reviewing a completely different band – after all, a lot can happen in half a decade. Thankfully though, Prion is still a formidable force within the death metal realm; those harsh vocal strains, a savage guitar attack and a sticksman who must have arms like concrete are still very much the order of the day here with this new long-awaited ten-track battering ram.

From the off, it’s a case of blast-beats at the ready and an audience left cowering under the table, because Prion takes no prisoners in its quest for destruction. This is no banal ear-drubbing lacking thrills, mind; Prion have an almost jarring nature to their violence, offering the sort of grey, scathing sound which only slightly drifts into the more dissonant realms of blackened death metal as well as providing thrashing techniques which all work well within that more standard death metal ferocity.

There’s no denying the overall power and potency of this record, an album that is equally comfortable removing the bones from the body with pace as it is seducing us with slower, harsher moments – particularly on the ravenous title track and the sizzling opener ‘Power Obsessed’, where drummer Marcelo Russo goes straight for the jugular, his sticks firmly rammed into our nasal passages while he continues his tirade of percussive abuse. There’s something so arrogant and precise about this opus, although I’m not sure if the mocking aspect comes from Gregorio Kochian’s masterful harsh burps or his equally vengeful and scornful seething guitar sound.

Nevertheless, this is an infectious and often dehydrated death metal blast that I’ve enjoyed from beginning to end; finding myself lost in the tidy assault of ‘Chronic Disease’ where the drums give new meaning to the words “blast” and “beat”, and then comes the bullying speed of ‘Now Is The Hour’ and the violent cacophony of the blazing ‘Control Societies’, which offers a Morbid Angel-style of perversity in its guitar churn. Indeed, ‘Control Societies’ is probably the album’s finest moment and truly formidable chunk of rancid death metal that oozes arrogance and marries blistering speed with darker, rolling passages of gloom. The trudging intensity at 2:45 is masterful before we’re hammered again by those frantic drum antics.

One cannot beat a slice of unpredictable death metal. For me, Prion’s new release nods at the early to mid 90s, boasting such a damaging harshness that by the time you’ve finished with the likes of ‘Losing Itself In The Infinite’ and ‘Doomed Humanity Of Horror’ with its 80s New Wave Of British Heavy Metal beginning, you’ll be wondering just what vehicle has hit you.

It seems that the current death metal scene has been given the kick up the arse it needed, Prion working better as a unit rather than merely concentrating on vocal and guitar – the overall result being a derisive brand of extreme metal completely bereft of gimmicks or any real emotion, but just arrogant and snarling for its entirety.

Neil Arnold

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