Usurper is the follow-up to 2006's Essays on the Progression of Man: What Time and Earth Would Not Bury. With the word-count down and the complexity increased tenfold, Usurper is a rare gem of an album that combines the unbridled heaviness of Botch with the juggernaut momentum of Coalesce - throw in the inspiringly dark artwork of this band's guitarist, Bryan, and the mechanical stream-of-consciousness lyrics of vocalist Jason, and you have a force to be reckoned with.
Artwork: Each page of the album bears images similar to the cover - human, yet disturbingly mechanistic. Viewing the artwork, one would regularly ask "Is that real . . . ?" and gawk at the images. Some pages have words written across them taken from the adjacent song's lyrics, in the same all-lower case no-grammatical marks style of the pages and pages of darkly poetic lyrics. Without employing the standard gory scare tactics of metal, The Handshake Murders stir deep emotions by creating an entire world through inspiring image, lyrics, and sound. This album gets an A+ in the art department.
Structure: The album changes rhythm often enough that no individual track has a consistent feel. There are four songs grouped together, and another group of six, separated by what sounds like a lecture being given with the band playing sporadically over it. The album begins in a similar fashion to Coalesce's Give Them Rope, with an isolated vocal being increasingly supported by the devastating throes of the band's fury. "Fifteen minutes to failure to collapse until I impose my contortion" and then it all begins. How appropriate.
Sound: The entire album carries a darkly mechanical sound that is made slightly unsettling by the band's propensity for switching time signatures or completely changing grooves with little to no notice. The atmosphere is dark and brooding, regularly lashing out with an unbridled rage that would be found less and less in following years with bands trying to hock this complex sound. The Handshake Murders do remind the listener of bands like Coalesce and Botch, but with a distinctly different approach that simply doesn't care what is in its path - this album charges through its entire length without regard for injuries or casualties.
Lyrics: This album is one manic-depressive run-on sentence. The lyricist can't be faulted for grammatical errors because he didn't even try - every song is a long string of ideas that evoke strong images of mechanical nightmares and savage bitterness.
Significant Facts: Personal note, these guys were playing "Apostate" when I walked into my first show, the Velociraptour in 2005 at the New Brookland Tavern. Also, the song below was written toward a person who led a destructive/controlling relationship with the vocalist's sister for years. (If you ever got to see the band before they broke up in 2011, you would most likely never, ever consider antagonizing the vocalist without a death wish.)
For Fans Of: Coalesce, Apiary, Botch, Norma Jean/The Chariot
Favorite Lyrics: know that your only power of me is that you could push me to kill you so come with your games and your screams of superiority your perfect victim routine hasn't worked on me in years silver-tongued Judas I am your highest enemy possessed of angelic vengeance you've got one foot in the grave choking on your arrogance now suffer the blows of my aggression worth all her tears turn around I'll rip your throat out die a coward
Favorite Track: Painted Contortionist
- Into the Mouth of Fear/Dissector
- Bloodlines
- Painted Contortionist
- A New Enemy
- Error
- Mind Bender
- How to Kill
- A New Human
- Apostate
- Myopia
- Of Cult and Atrophy
Listen: Last.fm /// Reverbnation /// Myspace
Merch: designs
-Brian
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