Project: Failing Flesh - The Conjoined

by Cosmo Lee

Project: Failing Flesh‘s main selling point is probably vocalist Eric Forrest, formerly of Voivod. His time in Voivod is highly underrated; the band lost the nuance it had with original vocalist Snake, but it became heavy as hell. After Voivod, Forrest formed his own cyber-thrash outfit, E-Force. He also linked up with brothers Tim and Kevin Gutierrez, of Vienna, VA, to form Project: Failing Flesh. More accurately, the brothers emailed Forrest out of the blue, and he agreed to contribute vocals after hearing their material.

Through the Broken Lens
Regenerate

Forrest’s yells and occasional singing are sturdy enough, but the brothers Gutierrez are the real stars of The Conjoined (Burning Star, 2007). They wrote all the music and played all the instruments, except for some keyboards, trumpets, and cello. The record is some of the freshest metal I’ve heard in ages. Meshuggah, Voivod, Godflesh, black metal, industrial electronics, and general weirdness intertwine seamlessly; a lot of neurons are firing here. One never knows what’s around the corner, but it’s usually a pleasant surprise. Such unpredictability reminds me of Mike Patton, but none of his projects have been this heavy or substantial.

I recently had a discussion with live4metal.com’s Dave Schalek about the state of metal today, and we generally agreed that the major subgenres of metal (death, black, thrash, etc.) have run their course creatively. Metal hasn’t had any major paradigm shifts since black metal in the ’90s; trends since then have been more faddish than innovative. The concept of “hybrid vigor” greatly appeals to me (interracial marriages, mixed-breed animals, etc.), and I believe the way forward with metal is hybridization à la Project: Failing Flesh.

Buy:
The End
Burning Star
Amazon (MP3)