Prices On Our Heads – “Anomaly” [Album Review]

From the depths of Louisville, Kentucky comes Prices On Our Heads: a band that boasts the dark, looming and thunderously heavy style of deathcore in the vein of 2008 Whitechapel, Slice The Cake, and Rose Funeral. Their new record, Anomaly, fully encompasses this era of deathcore and unearths an intense nostalgia, bringing me back to the days when I first became captivated by this blood-curdling variety of metal. A few years ago, “deathcore” was a style of heavy music that was unembellished, in-your-face, and if you put on the right song at just the right time, made you feel truly possessed for a fleeting moment.

Opening with the track “Monolith,” Anomaly kicks your teeth in from the get-go. It is a little bit on the slower side, but this adds to the heaviness. Boasting its fair share of “BLEGHS” and riffs that cut like razors, the song is truly packed and sets the stage for what is about to commence.

The “Anomaly” song series at the end wraps the album up well, as the three larger-than-life tracks bounce off each other effortlessly. “Anomaly III \\ Collision” was my personal favorite as it was a prime example of the straightforward, gut-wrenchingly dense metallic fare I know and love. My fleeting moment of possession occurred at the very end, where the band executes a breakdown so bludgeoning, so impeccably-timed, that it would send even the calmest metal fan into a blind rage of fury.

It isn’t often I hear an album like this one, and I enjoyed time-traveling back a few years, but there was one slight issue. Many of the tracks off Anomaly were not listenable enough for me; they were not catchy. The writing is strong, the instrumentation on point, but I feel as if simply being heavy is not enough in the year 2015. If Prices On Our Heads is to break out of the underground, they need to find their stride and create more original music that sticks.

Track Listing:

01. Monolith
02. Dysnomia
03. Null
04. Machine Over Matter
05. Less Than Whole
06. Into The Abstract
07. Anomaly I \\ Map
08. Anomaly II \\ Territory
09. Anomaly III \\ Collision

Run Time: 39:28
Release Date: February 13, 2015

Check out the song “Into The Abstract” here