RSS Feed


SEROCS
The Next

Comatose Music (2013)
Rating: 5/10

Originally formed as a one-man project by Mexican guitarist Antonio Freyre in 2009, Serocs are a technical death metal band who won’t let you head bang for more than a few minutes, simply because their discordant guitars, jarring drums and frantic, disfigured bass, refuse to relax into any sort of comfortable rhythm.

The Next is the second opus from Serocs, and is a rather disorientating experience that isn’t necessarily too fancy, but just rarely constant, combining a modern death-grind dynamic with more old school combinations. The vocals of Jason Hohenstein (ex-Lecherous Nocturne) are extremely guttural, working their way between blazing, yet always jolting guitars and convulsing drums.

At times, I’m rather lost within the mess. Tracks such as ‘The Variable’, ‘Urban Terror’ and ‘The Hellgramite Method’ twist, turn and pummel, and yet for all their intentions to batter, I’m left relatively unscarred by this eight-track composition.

There’s no denying the talent on offer here, but I don’t see this record appealing to anyone else except those with a penchant for modern death-grind. In all fairness though, this does lack the polished quality of some of the more recent releases which have left me completely cold.

Serocs also, in spite of their aptitude, rarely resort to the more jazzy, showy episodes and at all times remain a brutal wall of sound that runs right from the opening title track to the closing ‘Alienus Gignesthai’ – one of the album’s standout tracks with those barking vocals and staggering drum works.

Even so, Serocs could be blamed for simply resorting to type. The Next soon becomes another of those also-rans of blast-beat mayhem and shuddering intensity, and that’s just not enough for me. For instance, ‘The Shining One’ and ‘ChernoVile’ do little to separate themselves from one another, meaning that the whole album seems to blur into one long, overtly technical explosion that remains bereft of any identity.

Extreme metalheads among you may be inclined to feel that such a review is a tad harsh, but when I hear a track such as ‘Weakness Fed The Fear’ I’m reminded as to why I take such a dislike to this sort of bland, hurtling metal.

Sadly, however many times I play The Next I tend to play up to its title by skipping literally to “the next” track, and wait time and time again to be hooked on a particular section only to sink deeper into the waters of the formulaic. Serocs are trying to be different with their brand of aggression, but with Dying Fetus and so many other bands plying their trade with similar evolutionary chaos, Serocs just pass me by.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share