“I couldn’t stand watching the sickness spread.“
For those who have taken a delight in deathcore returning to its roots, returning to its gruelling sound that served as a perfect soundtrack to Counter Strike, Tracheotomy deserve to a hold a certain place in its revival. Dissimulation dropped in 2022, an EP that had an evil desire to sound as disgusting as possible, from its production to the feral gutturals and chugging guitars. It was a welcomed turn away from the djent and technical stylings that recent deathcore acts such as Lorna Shore and DARKO have come to embrace.
The years since have seen the likes of PSYCHO-FRAME, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Mantikore, and Lilth’s Demise join the ranks of acts looking to bolster and embrace the sound of old-school deathcore. It’s at this somewhat early junction that question of this is a flash in the pan or a genre rediscovering its natural instinct, and which bands will be at the forefront of that.
Those setting their stopwatches until Tracheotomy begin to chug away won’t be waiting long, as instrumental opener “Maimed” manages it in just a minute before hitting full throttle on “Deliberate Dehumanization“. It’s evident from here that Tracheotomy are taking the Nick Gage approach in terms of brutality, each double kick being a pizza cutter across the forehead, and each breakdown being dumped through a pane of glass.
“Stifled by Dominance” at times takes a riff-led and patterned approach alike to tech death, but without letting up on its sheer heaviness across the track. As Fixated Propensity for Destruction moves into “Repercussions” it’s where the limitations of Tracheotomy’s sound begin to emerge, which may stem from its production and lack of truly stand out moments to mix up the record.
Previous Tracheotomy EPs like the aforementioned Dissimulation and singles such as “Mask of Sanity” had a certain nastiness to their production that perfectly complemented Mariante‘s vocals, making them sound absolutely disgusting. This has all but been lost on Fixated Propensity for Destruction, with the tidier production removing this aspect of character from Tracheotomty‘s sound. This does then lead the record to hinge on its gutturals, chuggs and breakdowns which can only take a record so far, especially with no feature, interlude or interesting sample work.
None of this does fault Tracheotomy on a technical level, yet it does perhaps expose the wider fine margins that deathcore and this iteration of it exist on. While Fixated Propensity for Destruction does once again maintain Tracheotomy will remain a staple of the genre, a blip on production has seen their sound knocked back in amongst a genre revival that seems to be gaining pace.
7.5/10
Fixated Propensity for Destruction is out this Friday via 1126 Records, and can be pre-ordered here.