Tracklist :
1. Disavow Your God 05:02
2. Programmers of Decline 05:11
3. Diverted Logic 04:58
4. Rebirth of Senses 04:05
5. The Path 03:44
6. Splinters of Life 05:20
7. Guilty of Dispersal 04:23
8. Gilded Cage 03:25
9. A Common Hope 04:16
10. Watershed 05:05
11. Almighty Murderer 04:35
I have to confesss that I was really enrapted when I listened Gorod for the first time in may 2006. "Neurotripsicks" (2005) and "Leading Vision"(2006) certainly brought new elements to the underground death metal musical sphere. These french guys have mixed very good known death, progressive, technical, thrash, groove metal and jazz elementswith the new kind of stance. I can write absolutely frankly that Gorod is not ordinary death metal band. Their music is based on the highest level of mature musical skills in every way. It is pity that they are still very underrated in comparison with Spawn Of Possession, Necrophagist, Suffocation, Immolation or Cryptopsy.
Gorod is very rare not only from the musical point of view.
They had female drummer in band. Sandrine left the band last year when guys were preparing new material. Sandrine is a very creative and talented. She put a lot of syncopation patterns to "Neurotripsicks" & "Leading Vision". She deflected from the typical death metal drumming and that was very positive and inventive. In my subjective opinion New drummer Sam did the only one negative thingwhich I reproach to "Process of a New Decline" record. He plays very good, powerful, fast and technical but he prefers frequentlyblast beats and all that typical death metal stuff. He quite changed Sandrine jazz-death style but apparently Gorod wanted to do it wilfully.
But In final consequence this fact do not lose on the quality at all.
Now I can begin to express the mass of praises. Record after record Gorod has better production where every challenging listener can be really content with their fat sound. Arnaud, Mathieu and Barby was preparing soon three years the excellent material where riff by riff on every instrument is so carefully composed and arranged.
"Disavow your God" will crawl into your ears by the first listening with harmonic and disharmonic alternations. I do not know more creative band which is so technical, progressive, brutal and melodic in the most accurate equilibrium how Gorod are.
The choirs and orchestration experimental motives in the song "The Path" sounds decent, atmospheric and are suitable as the intro for the song. Maybe this track could make better impression for the listener as the first track on the record, not fifth.
Song "Watershed" have really suprised me. Song starts with very nice deep-felted tones in the slow tempo. Clean whisper vocals with effect,interesting bassline and soft clean guitars turns into jazz metal leads which evokes Atheist or Cynic for a while. Then song progression leads to transition to the death metal stuff which "wins all the awards for me". Excellent work ! This is the first album where Gorod begin to make experiments with clean vocals by the growling. They can make every experiment successful.
Do you remember the "Hidden Genocide" outro from "Leading Vision" album? It really sounds like "reincarnation" of a the guitar legend Django Reinhardt. I found the jazz and swing syncopation rhythms also in the greatest song on this record called "Programmers of Decline". Structure of guitar solos make Gorod always different from jazz influenced guitar solos from Suffocation, Martyr, Pestilence, Immolation and others. Reason? They focus more in not difficult melodies and harmonies where they aproach closer to older jazz (dixieland jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz influences) as others mentioned take ideas from later jazz (free jazz, hard bop, jazz fusion) and classical music. Riffs consists of frequently harmoniser and octaver effect elements and tapping techniques.
Gorod did the excellent job what deserves deep bow.
First time I give full score and let me write that THIS is the most perfect , aesthetic, impressive, inventive, the most interesting metal album of year 2009.
Favourite songs: almost whole record
rating: 10/10
