While NYDM has given us a sizeable portion of the best death metal, it has also given us a plethora of mediocre copycats and an even greater number of terrible bands that never understood the bands that they were trying to plagiarize. Fallen Christ fall into neither of those categories and offer us a completely new take on what is possible within the NYDM style. With a young Alex Hernandez of Immolation behind the kit, we are treated to what can only be described as erratic yet controlled chaos.
While at first glance the aesthetics point towards basic anti-Christianity, the band actually reimagine Christianity as a force of evil and imbue in their songs twisted versions of worship music elements. Hymns containing growls, ominously narrated “biblical” passages, church bells and even organs. This interpretation of a dark church allows some respite from the constantly grinding rhythm section and helps the band flesh out the short songs into something somewhat evocative.
The grindcore influence presents itself in the song lengths and the riff arrangements. Each composition only ever goes above the 2 minute mark to accommodate for the previously mentioned atmospheric passages. Alex Hernandez leads the charge with the extravagant style shown on Immolation’s Close to a World Below which is already fully developed at this point. This allows the band to flow through multiple complex riffs before abruptly ending these songs. The lead guitar and the vocals never relent as they are given a lot of importance in shaping the music. Vocals function outside of the high/low duality and are reminiscent of the various voices used over the years by prime David Vincent with the narrations being done in the “God of Emptiness” voice. The leads for the most part work as an additional layer obeying the whims of the rhythm guitar before either playing counter melodies or accentuating the intensity through Bob Vigna like bursts of noise.
The riffs here cycle within the NYDM lexicon of fast tremolo riffs, constantly changing chugs with pinch harmonics, slow dirges and all sorts of guitar acrobatics. The speed at which the band revolve through them is a double-edged sword. While there is a constant sense of excitement as the bands delivers at every twist and turn but there is also very little time to be familiarized with each riff and the lack of repetition makes everything pass like a blur and thus limiting the impact of each track.
Fallen Christ don’t reach the heights of the NYDM big three but unlike the majority of their peers offer something different that should have been explored further with the same set of tools. Abduction Ritual‘s flirtation with seemingly opposing ideas in both grindcore and atmosphere as well as its excellent riffs definitely makes this a severely underappreciated album that needs to be heard by all death metal fans.
