Eat a Helicopter "Descend Into Darkness" EP Review

Genre: Metal / Deathcore / Experimental

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Eat A Helicopter's latest EP, Descend Into Darkness, is a brutal album that didn't quite find its voice until about halfway through. Once they found it, there was no turning back. If you're a fan of beatdown, dissonant breakdown, crushing vocals, and amazing drum work, this album is for you! See below for the track by track dissection:

1. Blood Dynasty (Scourge) - The opening track comes at you slow and heavy with plenty of breakdowns strewn without it. There isn't a lot of technicality in the guitar work, but the drums really stand out to me on this track. There are fast blast beats and triplets on the bass. The vocals couldn't match this song any better, both high and low. This song will get you up, moving, and ready to start moshing. Be ready for a lot of dissonant, beatdown style breakdowns!

2. Internal Decay - The drums absolutely tear this track up, and the guitars take a more technical turn, which I was very happy to hear. There is still a strong beatdown presence in this song, which I haven't heard a lot of recently. It's a welcome change for me. They bring it hard from start to finish on this.

3. Maggot Mouth - A very slow, electronic beeping starts this one, followed by some ethereal sounding voices and textures. The bass drums comes in and slips away. Then, the moment you've been waiting for: a skull crushingly heavy breakdown to get things going. This doesn't give way until we go back to the creepy voices, which is short lived. It really sounds like Eat A Helicopter comes alive on this track with their brutality and sound. Ridiculously heavy, and not just for the sake of it. This song obliterates.

4. Sluggard (Infected With Life) - This song comes out of the gates of Hell blast beating, tremolo picking, and high screeches. It's a drastic change in speed from the last track to get you going again. The speed slows down as we enter more breakdowns and beatdown style writing. The pattern of blast beats and breakdowns continues as it just gets progressively heavier as the song treads on. The last breakdown may feel a little tacked on, but the insanity of it makes it okay.

5. Lovers Wrought - The last drum hit of the breakdown in track 4 leads right into this one. The intro of it reminds me heavily of Recon. The vocals kick in with a tingling keyboard sample, which I wished they used a little more of throughout this EP. The drums, as par for this album, are killing it. We hear some pretty awesome riffs from the guitarists on this track, showing they can do more than "chug chug chug". A nice drum build up leads us into the last breakdowns and keyboards, as the album comes to a close. Absurdly heavy song to end the album.

Rating: 4/5