The Down Spiral To Hell - The Advent of Neurosis (2008)

Out of the countless CD’s I get on the mail or digitally every month, I have to say that only a few standout each month, and “The Advent of Neurosis” is one of the most recent ones.

The Spanish duo called The Down Spiral To Hell have a really demented style that is very amusing to listen to. Mixing Black/Death/Grind Metal among other genres, make this release a listening journey into the abyss. The brutal riffs with Grind style vocals set the tone for this crushing album that will leave your head spinning for a few hours after the album is done.

I’m not a big fan of Grind, but sometimes you need that level of brutality to get through the listener. Combining inhuman vocals with deep riffs and weird atmospheres provided by subtle keyboard use, the band manages to create a very unique sounding style that they can call their own. Brutality is the main idea behind this music but there is enough complexity behind this to make this album stand out from all the Grind albums I get to listen on a weekly basis.

The usage of a drum machine just makes the music sound relentless and brutal. But this is not all, since the riffing is pretty solid and destructive alongside the different vocal styles used. The keyboard/synth elements are there in the right times to give the whole album a different take than most bands that this style. The horror movie sounding piano sections give the extra eerie feeling to the music that you would not expect.

Some Black Metal style riffing is used here and there, but never abused and it’s just there to add more ‘weirdness’ to the band’s already rich sound.

In general “The Advent of Neurosis” is a pretty decent album that showcases the band’s talent at combining different elements unexpectedly on top of a very brutal musical foundation. If you are looking for something brutal and different, but not too weird, then you have just found the perfect CD for your music collection.

Release: 2008

Country: Spain