INFERNAL METHOD: Architecture of Instinct

Released: 2005

For a number of years, Infernal Method was a name on the lips of a good number of Australian metal fans all around the country. Right from the moment they began, word spread that there was something a bit special about this Sydney band. They had the songs, a fearsome sound and a savage live reputation. But they just couldn't keep a solid line-up together; indeed the band had actually split up once in the period between when this was originally recorded and when it was finally released. So the debut album from Infernal Method finally arrived after two years of promises, line-up changes and re-recordings. The grand question of whether the wait was worth it hung heavily over it.

It took me a few spins to get a grip on Architecture of Instinct. Having heard some of these songs take shape from an early demo with no vocals to live versions with different singers and then to their ultimate recorded form, I probably noticed the tweaking and reworking more than most. At first, it left me a little cold, so familiar was I with previous arrangements and the enormous death metal roar of Joss Separovic. Evan Williams has a distinctly metalcore sound to his voice and it seems as if the band has tinkered with old arrangements here and there to cater to that style.

In the end that doesn't make much difference, but Architecture was a somewhat different beast to that I had been expecting. There are times where I still wonder what’s going on. “…to the Innards of the Prey”, for example, just trails off when it seems like there’s still half a song to go and Justin Brockbank from Friar Rush comes in to add some clean vocals to “The Burning Earth” that quite frankly sound completely out of place, even now. It's still a good album, but with some qualification. Neither the technical aspects nor the playing can be faulted, and songwriter Petar Peric’s ear for a distinctive and catchy melody resulted in a bunch of solid tracks that even with their new metalcore edge still demanded the attention of death metal fans.

In the end however the album suffered from having been delayed for so long. In the two years since it was first recorded, melodic death metal had become a thoroughly swamped area and Architecture of Instinct is now another quality volume in the genre instead of the distinctive stand-out it could have been had it been released in 2003.

1. Perpetual Sonic Obliteration
2. Reanimating the Wicked
3. ...to the Innards of the Prey
4. Change Blindness
5. Whispers and Spittle
6. An Incision Across the Anatomy of Iteration
7. Union of Animal and Genius (Methodology I)
8. Animal in Chains (Methodology II)
9. The Burning Earth
10. Of Words, Will and Power

Rating: 88%