Whats New

Banisher – Degrees of Isolation – Album Review

Is there a more apt concept than isolation at the moment?!

Featuring an all-star tech death roster that includes current live/former members of Decapitated, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Belphegor, Vital Remains, Acid Drinkers, Redemptor, Hate and Shodan, Poland’s Banisher have released an extremely muscular slab of technical death metal with a healthy sense of groove and some particularly catchy hooks.

Degrees of Isolation is an aptly named album, given the world’s populace is currently in varying degrees of self-isolation. The songs are based upon real life experiences with each song describing the feelings of members during various points of their incarceration and after their acquittal. The reality of the lyrical content makes the music on this album exceptionally dark, authentic and weighty.

Using a mixture of vicious, venomous and vitriolic brutal death metal and utterly savage technical riffage, this album is an all-out assault on the listener. Dishing out ferocity – via riffs that may as well be falling anvils – while swiftly ripping into dazzling technical offensives at will is an impressive talent that is fully on display here. The band are also adept at switching gears to introduce head banging grooves, sucking in the listener with adept skill, all whilst maintaining an assault on the senses.

Most certainly ‘tech’ enough to keep those of you with ADHD entertained, brutal enough to keep the cavemen among you from raising your clubs in anger (yes, there are notes past the 5th fret) and absolutely groovy enough to get stuck in your head, ensuring you come back. We did find the breakup instrumental track “Illusory Enslavement” unnecessary, albeit short, because it disturbed the pace of the album and didn’t fit in quite as well as intended. However, all in all Degrees of Isolation is a solid album. 8/10.

Band members:

Szczepan Inglot – vocals
Hubert Więcek – guitars
Eugene Ryabchenko – drums
Piotr Kołakowski – bass

Banisher’s Degrees of Isolation was released on February 29th, 2020 via Selfmadegod Records.

About Gordon Crothers (4 Articles)
From Northern Ireland and a life long fan of metal. I was first introduced at a young age to Slayer and Metallica and my love with heaviness of all kinds took hold.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*