The Berzerker World Of Lies

The Berzerker have always fallen into a special grouping of exactly two bands capable of alternately fascinating and annoying me, but ultimately convincing me that their existence is justified and necessary. The other "band" in this elite company is Agoraphobic Nosebleed, with whom The Berzerker share the classification (in my mind, at least) of "techno grind," in that they don't necessarily sound alike, but both utilize electronic drums set on overdrive to underscore their respective brands of manic metal. While Agoraphobic Nosebleed utilize their drum machine to take grind to its most extreme, The Berzerker incorporate more discernible song structure and riffing into the barrage of painfully obvious drum machine precision. While at various points the band has utilized actual live drums and stage gimmickry, World of Lies finds them unmasked, without a drummer and seemingly lacking the inspiration that made Dissimulate shine past their unconventional methods. Most of the songs on World of Lies draw their influence from death metal, and in the album's first forty minutes, many of the guitar lines are genre-specific successes. Additionally, the well-chosen spoken pieces actually do provide a functional segue between the album's songs. The main obstacles to my enjoyment of this record are the electronic drumming that has become the band's signature and the overly formulaic nature of it all. These drum parts could have easily been played by a live drummer and the general sound, while unique, is ultimately grating. I honestly could have looked past the drumming if the music was creative enough to keep my attention, but it's really just well-played traditional death metal/grind. With different drumming (and under a different name) this record could've been a pretty solid throwback metal record, but as a new Berzerker record, I'm just not buying it. The disc certainly has a handful of high points musically and many of the tracks get into your head, but the band seems to have lost a certain amount of the innovative spark that made their previous two albums succeed where this one does not. The proverbial "nail in the coffin" is the twenty-minute stoner track that ends the album by repeating itself over and over and over and over and... well, you get the point. After forty minutes of capable yet uninspired death metal, a half hour of predictable bluesy riffing isn't the way to get back on my good side. Bottom Line: The Berzerker seem to have formed with the purpose of creating, innovating and testing listeners' limits. With World of Lies, they seem to have opted for a safer, more generally palatable style and it really doesn't suit them. While the record may have defied audience expectations with its streamlined, death metal songwriting, The Berzerker has given up most of the random genius that won over their fans in the first place.