Chryseis
Planet Dead

March 2011
Released: 2010, Great Dane Records
Rating: 2.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Sci-fi themes in lyrics are widely used in metal – and if it´s also well supported by well thought out and innovative act of instrumental presentation, then most of us should be happy, I guess.



Chryseis from France has given a shot for capturing both the sci-fi theme and experimental thrash/death metal into their 2nd album, carrying the title PLANET DEAD. Unfortunately the whole album sounds a bit of oddball to me – simply flying around too many directions, and therefore lacking of many of those essentially important things that could also allow listeners to take a short breath while sinking their teeth into this disc, and primarily enjoy the outcome of it.



For me PLANET DEAD sounds – to spit it out honestly, like one big mess, in which the guys have tried to swallow a bit too big piece at one bite – and at the expense of sacrificing their presumably great musicianship by carrying out all their great ideas and innovation within the music, simply a bit too far on PLANET DEAD.



There are a few, occasional glimpses on Chryseis´ album – strictly related to their music only, that tend to remind me of bands like Nocturnus, Pestilence (the SPHERES era) and Gorguts in some peculiar way – and I wanted to bring out these band references just to give you an idea about their stuff what they do. The main problem for Chryseis, however is, this album does not progress or go anywhere – no matter how hard and determinedly you would like to understand what´s really going on on this very album in question. It does not help their situation much either that the production here is overall pretty thin; the drums´ sound is even horrible – and I am not sure whether I can tell the drummer can always hit the right beats to be completely honest with you. Jey´s lead guitar work is thoroughly good on PLANET DEAD though if some positive notes can be made.



It´s no denying the guys have put lots of effort into their song structures and all, but making this album such a mish-mash of aspiring musical ideas in which sort of over-progressiveness and overly technical instrumental wankery play the main roles at the expense of having actually a bunch of catchy and more easily digested songs recorded for it, this is where the band has chosen a wrong path to follow. What a screaming pity indeed, as I honestly gotta believe they would have so much more to offer than just their over-the-top ideas about playing technical and progressive metal only.