Consuming the Tangible

What what I knew about Becoming Akh before coming into their 2015 EP Abolisher.  It was metal, and it was on Transcending Records.  I got the album and about a dozen others like it as part of a campaign to help Transcending Records with a flood that devastated their merchandise.  I even wrote about it on Nine Circles.  The first of a two-part concert album, Abolisher deals in a kind of mechanized progressive death/djent that sits high in a few sonic frequencies and eschews the rest.

Maybe that sits well with you.  I listen to Abolisher and I can appreciate the effort that went into putting something this complex together by one guy.  I’m always a sucker for one-man bass since it echoes my own situation and even when I’m not really into the kind of music Becoming Akh plays, I admire and can pick up tips from how Chris Wittren assembles this conceptual beast.  Could the drums feel a little more punchy and human?  Sure.  Could we get a little bottom end in here somewhere?  Yeah.  But in the end the dude is executing something that sounds exactly like what he’s shooting for, and I can get behind that, even as I may not listen to it again.