Murder Construct, Results
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a couple of years since the release of Murder Construct’s self-titled EP introduction to the world. What those seven tracks presented, as it turns out, was but a hint at what we were to be bludgeoned with on their debut full-length, Results.
Where to begin with Results? I mean, the album is just so deafeningly awesome in just about every regard. The grinding blasts that dominate the album could peel paint off the walls. The progressive movements and technical focus of the guitars is more than enough to turn any wholly sane individual into a raving lunatic. Throw in the throat talents of Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation) and you have yourself cause for many epileptic seizures throughout the land.
Dense, layered, precise, barbaric, snarling and pissed-the-fuck-off are all words that don’t do an album like this justice. Neither is the perfect five out of five score I’m giving it. Results is one of those albums that simply cannot be defined, nor digested in a single sitting — there’s just too much going on in such a short amount of time for one to catch it all the first time through. That said, this isn’t just a frantic blast of formulaic grind. There are actually songs here — songs that will pilfer your skull for every moist nugget of brain tissue they can, but songs nonetheless.
“Red All Over” kick starts the album with a relatively benign though discordant first 30 seconds or so before all motherfucking hell breaks loose. The drum work is like being bombarded by a few hundred, 200 pound bees as they defend their honeycomb from your greedy hands. Ryan’s vocals are on par with what we heard on the latest effort from his main avenue of aggression. The guitars seem to float above the din as they lurch and soar through riffage to lead and back again in record time. The short opener gives way violently to the absolutely pummeling and bestial “Under the Weight of the Wood,” a song that is burly and powerful.
The guys are sure to keep things to the point and brief, never overstaying their welcome or playing beyond what needs to be done to communicate their message. The vast majority of the songs barely make it to the two minute mark while one mid-album track reaches 3:34 and the album closer hits the 6:36 mark. Songs like the marching “No Question, No Comment,” the frenetic yet oddly melodic “Gold Digger” and meaty “Feign Ignorance” average two minute running times. “Compelled by Mediocrity” is the sole song within the depths of Results that goes beyond three minutes, but it’s a song so tightly packed with everything, including the stained kitchen sink that it flies by like nothing.
I’ve listened to all twenty nine minutes and fourteen seconds of Results many, many, many (you get the picture) times through now, and I cannot find a single thing to bitch about. Believe me, I’ve tried. No album should ever be deemed perfect as there is always something to improve upon. That said, I just can’t not give the latest from Murder Construct anything less than a perfect score — that would be doing the effort of this band and the, ahem, result of that hard work a mighty disservice. Right now Results is and, more than likely, will remain through the rest of the year my top album of 2012.