Flourishing: The Sum of All Fossils (2011)

Review

Flourishing has been mentioned alongside Ulcerate and Mitochondrion. Since I enjoy those bands a great deal, I picked up their debut full-length The Sum of All Fossils.


The aforementioned article posed the question: Is post-death metal a new genre? It's been addressed in other places as well. Based solely on this album, you couldn't come to a definitive conclusion. Flourishing certainly exhibit some of the "post-" tendencies--especially their dissonant atmospheric riffs. But I understood this album as an example of death metal blended with hardcore.


The guitar riffs are angular and dissonant, and will certainly draw comparisons to Ulcerate and Mitochondrion. But the drums tend toward hardcore patterns (or what little I know of them) as much as they do death drumming. The vocals, too, tend toward hardcore with hoarse shouting rather than any kind of growls. And there's a distinct Godflesh flavor to the proceedings (especially check "By Which We're Cemented"), giving even more credence to the death/hardcore explanation. But don't you dare say deathcore, or I will slap you in the face.



The Verdict: I'm not sure whether I like the album or I really like the album. This one could be a grower, not unlike Ulcerate's The Destroyers of All. One thing is for certain: It is different, and that counts for a lot. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.