The Crypts of the Unknown harbors many festered treasures. Have you ever come across an album that you enjoy, but seemingly no other human in existence knows about it? Or maybe an album that ticks all the boxes in a style that doesn’t get a lot of love? Oh, and of course, you’ve found this album long after it would have mattered to help the band spread the word… or perhaps it’s just your dirty little secret…
Whatever the case, we here at Goat Review prefer to air our loves to the world, to open the gates of our corroded Crypts to the masses. Today, join us as Scuttlegoat reminisces on Animosity‘s 2007 release Animal. It may not be perfect, but how would you know?
At the end of the day, what does obscure mean? It is pretty hard to be defined, and while discussing the form and the definition of this writeup series, we weren’t quite sure where to draw the line. Animosity are certainly an edge case, as they would be very much well known to a specific kind of metalhead, albeit rather obscure to another. Being on Metal Blade could certainly disqualify Animosity from being obscure but ultimately, I do believe that most readers of this blog probably wouldn’t think to check out a band like Animosity. Deathcore, be it technical or otherwise, seems to be the genre most despised by the metal purists, but it is a shame as there is lots to discover in Animosity‘s work and there really isn’t much to be found of the elements that are supposedly the bad aspects of deathcore.
Animal is the band’s last album and in many ways their greatest achievement. While the material never approaches insane speeds, it is undeniably rather technical and complex. The material is percussive in nature doesn’t approach the higher register unless it really needs to. The band manages to keep up an insane groove at all times despite often unexpectedly changing time signatures and rarely repeating material. Often sections will recur in the way that you least expect it, putting the emphasis on completely different beats or even fully transforming them rhythmically. Even though Animal wears it’s technicality in an obvious manner, Animosity holds restraint and purpose in every writing decision. The album is very rhythm heavy and therefore lead sections will hit much harder than they usually would when they do make an appearance. The band doesn’t do this for a lack of skill, just check the brilliant solo in “Plunder Incorporated”. But it seems their technical approach isn’t about bragging as much as it is maximizing the physical impact of the material.
