How fast can laser beams travel on a guitar neck? Well, ask these guys in Xoth!
After a longer silence – with last year’s one-off single Plague Revival as a lonely sign of life– Seattle’s death metal-sci-fi-thrashers Xoth are back with their second self-released full length Interdimensional Invocations and again they show how speed metal and tech-death can spawn a solid technical animal.
The band embarks on a 40 minute journey of speedy dual guitars, lots of double bass and a great mixture of different voices which is one of their strongest trademarks. Everything blends nicely into this lyrical chaos of rising cybernetic kings, a plague for mankind and the phantom queen at whose feet we kneel. It is evident how much fun Xoth had when writing these lyrics, because this is all taken with two grains of irony and that is what separates them from a lot of their tech-death colleagues. A genre laden with so much sterility and precision can definitely use a band that has a twinkle in the eye. The post-machine-takeover science-fiction theme is a good contrast to a lot of the over-serious topics you encounter in this genre. Nevertheless, do not mistake them for the Coheed and Cambria of tech-death – here is no solution to end wars, here those battles are over and mankind lost.
On the other hand it must also be clear that musically Xoth does not add anything new to this genre, they can compete but not challenge. Many other bands that they already shared the stage with are capable of the same dual-threat guitar attacks and double-bass massacres; nevertheless, the Seattle quartet can say for themselves that having three vocalists is a bonus as each voice is clearly identifiable and different, ranging from a bar brawl shouter to clear black shrieks and deathly growls.
The band is definitely at their best when they give the songs a rest, even if it’s only a momentary one, but that makes them even more interesting, for example the little slap-bass part in Plague Years 20XX or the dancing and dueling guitars at the beginning of Mountain Machines. If they can focus their songwriting more on songs like the final Melted Face of the Soul in which classic metal guitar work alternates with on-point death metal riffing the next album can become even more of a genre-bender.
