Logical Terror – “Almost Human”

You gotta love pyramids with a single eyeball near their apexes. They’re invading metal album covers in all the extreme and underground sub-genres! What is this phenomenon? An uprising Metal Artwork Illuminati of some sort? Brrr, next thing you know, we will be seeing weirdly-titled albums coming in packaging that includes a cryptogram to decipher the real album title.

With such a crisp-looking, electric blue album cover design and an Isaac Asimov-esque album title, it’s not difficult to guess what kind of music Logical Terror plays before you even give this disc a spin. That’s right folks, it’s industrial nu-metal, or rather, industrial nu-nu-metal. Together with this other obscure band I love from my own country (check them out people, Google “Flawed Element”), they’re part of the new wave of modern metal bands that spice up the industrial not-so-nu-metal-anymore genre with symphonic and progressive metal influences; an extremely welcome and novel move in my opinion.

In short, this record will probably appeal to fans of Fear Factory, a band that Logical Terror obviously worships, but be prepared to hear the occasional injection of melodic guitar solos and plenty of Jon Howard-ish clean singing instead of stoning to syncopated beats and raspy shouts all the way. This Italian sextet dish out plenty of pounding industrial beats, scrambling MIDI sound samples, synthesized vocals and even some violin tunes (e.g. after the halfway mark of closing track, “Facing Eternity”), all of which lend the music a very cutting edge kind of modern yet catchy sound, which suits the record’s visual and lyrical themes to say the least.

With that said however, the record doesn’t hold onto one’s attention throughout. It lost my attention at the overly throaty-sounding “Degenerate Regenerate”, before perking up my ears again when it moves onto the next track, “Self Extinction”. All in all a commendable effort, this is yet another futuristic-sounding album that should keep you entertained for a while before the bigger stuff in (modern metalhead) life comes along – like the next Scar Symmetry album for instance. Standout tracks include “Nameless”, “Gender 3000”, “Self Extinction” and “Facing Eternity”.

Track Listing:

01. Nameless [3:26]
02. Gender 3000 [3:32]
03. Monad 61 [5:18]
04. Unfilled [3:30]
05. Degenerate Regenerate [3:28]
06. Self Extinction [3:14]
07. Collapse [4:50]
08. Facing Eternity [4:26]

Run Time: 31:38
Release Date: May 3, 2011 (USA, Worldwide)

Check out the song: “Facing Eternity”