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Cephalectomy "Eclipsing The Dawn" Reviews Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn As my inaugural foray into Cephalectomy's feverishly paced world of chaos and mysticism, I was overcome with the band's ability, form and style; Forest of Impaled had a similar impact. Spearheaded by Corey Andrews, Cephalectomy credits the assistance of two other tortured souls: Jason Nichols and Rob DeCoste. The grind of this Discorporate Music outfit is layered with all the necessary constructs, including a brutal death, crusty black, gut-wrenching grind and a ferocious metal approach all at a nitro-charged jackhammer pace. If that is not enough, the melody is omnipresent throughout the full-length sophomore release Eclipsing The Dawn, ultimately making this effort a sizeable powerhouse of staggering fanaticism. Cephalectomy's mysticism, musically and lyrically, soars far above the mediocre and challenges the extreme metal genre in complicated new ways. Furthering their progression, these Nova Scotians might better serve themselves by developing a stronger use of their inescapably intricate melody and timely tempo changes whereby enhancing their overall seismic allure on Eclipsing The Dawn. Inauspicious, this band has struck a sinister balance between blunt force and devilish delirium. The articulate pace changes, intense low end and punishing vocal savagery make Eclipsing The Dawn's exactly thirty-eight minutes an experiment in punishment and power. - Aaron McKay, Chronicles Of Chaos Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn There are a lot of textures and influences playing around with each other in Cephalectomy's Eclipsing The Dawn. Certainly, I think it's safe to say this is one of the more talented and original bands I've seen surface from the underground and into my CD player of late. At heart, this is crazy grindcore, but to simplify it as that is to be unfair to all the elements Cephalectomy have lovingly grafted into their music. The music has enough variety to keep the most jaded grindcore fan interested for a while. The tempo ranges from insanely fast passages with a percussion line that blurs by at light speed. The music also, at times, goes for the slow basement death. To boot, there is a surprising amount of melody interwoven with the sickness, at times fleetingly reminding one of the effect produced by symphonic metal, though not on as epic a scale. Now, to the vocals. They're having lots of fun too. Of course, you have the deep deepness subterranean vocals, along with the goofy sneery snarls so common to underground grind. At times, though, the music almost hits a black metal crescendo, if briefly. This is, I think, a blend of that minor symphonic influence (keyboards?) and the higher range of the grinding vocals. Plus, to make things more interesting, there are brutally lovely moments where the ambience of an asylum in hell is achieved as you hear multiple grinding vocals all vying and grunting away for attention. Nice touch and not one I'm sure I've encountered before. A must hear for grind fans. - Upchuck Undergrind, FishComCollective.net Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn Discorporate music - a small, probably unknown label for you, has the tendency to release bands which are completely messed up. They never play straight-in-your-face death metal or grind or whatever - it is always something I have trouble with when reviewing or trying to describe the music. Cephalectomy is no exception - they play "true northern mystigrind". This very self-explanatory name tells us that the music on Eclipsing The Dawn is .... Argh! It doesn’t tell us anything! This Canadian band plays something oscillating between shrieking grind and just furious fast metal that is kind of difficult to describe. Did I make things more clear or even worse? I thought so! Within one song, everything changes so quickly and so often that the first time I listened to the album, I thought it was pure chaos which eventually shaped itself into a pattern that was more familiar. But it took time (By the way, it usually happens to me with Discorporate releases.). Some say that those albums which take time to get are the best -- we’ll see if this is the case with Cephalectomy within the next few weeks. To have a broader picture of what they play, check their mp3 but be warned that just like a film trailer comprises the best parts of a movie, these mp3 files are probably the best tracks from their album. Eclipsing The Dawn sometimes lacks consistency in parts and that can damage the final impression that these Canadians make. Generally, Cephalectomy has a little bit of everything for everyone and should make all of you pretty happy. - Piotr Pyczek, Masterful Magazine Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn Damn, what a kind of record!!!. I'm still totally astonished with this canadian duo of brutal but hyper melodic brutal death. Is like having Disinter and Vehemence playing together with touches of genious Neuraxis and Hypocrisy (from Abducted), but on the Nth grade!, with tons of voices (they use three guest vocalist), from mega guttural to scremy grind or black like ones, and a fantastic and so complex, rich and technical guitar work, where melodies interlace their sound with voices and a furious and so technical drumming (I think it's a drum machine, but don't know it for sure), getting a powerful ensemble as few. And as extra, a superb cover! For the ones that thought that death metal cannot be brutal if melodic! - JM, Fleshrites Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn The three illustrious gentlemen that form Cephalectomy describe their music as mystigrind. Mystical lyrics reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft are accompanied by grinding death metal. The intro of the CD kind of sneaks up from behind and even surprises after listening to the album twice. The production does have an indefinable feeling; the vocals are hard to find in the mix. The drums sound a bit clinical too. Nevertheless the cheese is abundant and the strings fill up the room in no time. The cheesefactor is dictated by power metal influences, clean guitar parts and a 'je ne sais quois' that resembles that of Dutch cheeseband Imbolc. It certainly makes for a cheesecrust-frenzy. Eclipsing The Dawn lacks that extra length to keep it fresh from start to end. The production could have helped to make it better, especially for the vocals. Luckily there is enough cheese for everyone. - Horst Vonberg, Lords of Metal E-zine Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn I was taken aback by the opener Of Grievance and Exhumation (The Fallen): a calm, melodic sound suddenly bursts into moments of relentless brutality - excellent drum work and speed, speed, speed. Vocals are unmistakeably rotten and vary from the deep grunted to the slit shores. Midway through the song there is yet another acoustic moment - I would say it complements brutality by enhancing it. But before babbling further on the album itself, please allow me to introduce the band. CEPHALECTOMY have released '98 demo Dark Waters Rise, which earned them a deal with Discorporate Music, via which followed the debut CD Sign of Chaos (2001) and the present piece of masterful mystigrind art Eclipsing the Dawn (2004). CEPHALECTOMY officially play Mystigrind, which should be a myriad of influences ranging from H. P. Lovecraft's writings to whatever the insane minds of mastermind Corey Andrews and evil bard Jason Nichols have to offer. And that is saying a lot, because Eclipsing the Dawn is variation impersonated (not to be taken for experimentalism). Discerning thee Apocryphal Divinity starts off as a rather doomy song, in the old ANATHEMA/ CANDLEMASS vein, only to be brutally murdered and transformed in some amorphous proposal of brutality. In fact, despite the ever-present frenzy madness, CEPHALECTOMY never set melody aside, and Eclipsing the Dawn varies from brutal grind to an almost symphonic level of melody, alternating madness with bonanza. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. This is powerful stuff we have here. CEPHALECTOMY have also managed to include a sample of The Lord of the Rings ('Are you frightnened? | Yes. | Not nearly frightened enough.') intertwined with musical responses. That is a rather innovating detail. I could not help noticing I keep writing 'they' when I am not sure it is fair. CEPHALECTOMY is the result of one man’s effort - Corey Andrews - on guitar, bass, drums and vocals, with a little help from Jason Nichols' demonic voice and lyricism. There is one Rob Decoste character responsible for 'crimes against humanity', but I still have not quite figured what it represents. There is only one slight problem to the recording: vocals are not always clearly perceptible, an aspect the band will probably bear in mind in their next opus of maleficent tyranny. What else can I write about Eclipsing the Dawn? It is an album to remember, to say the least - unique and very different from what is or ever was practised in the Death/ Black music scenario. CEPHALECTOMY’s mystigrind is light-years above mediocrity and present their music in rather complex ways. A proof that Canada has a lot to offer (just think of CRYPTOPSY and ORIGIN). - Morgana, Lords of Metal E-zine Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn After Sign of Chaos, there were rumours that Cephalectomy would not be making any more music, especially as one of the two band members had left Nova Scotia for Alberta. Eclipsing the Dawn is proof that you can't keep a good (evil?) band down. The lyrics to Eclipsing the Dawn read like they could be a Lovecraft story, with various members of the Lovecraftian pantheon being invoked, including everyone's favorite squid-head, Cthulhu, who also makes a guest appearance on the cover art, which harkens back to the early 90's Swedish death metal cover art. Musically, this new Cephalectomy disc continues in the vein of Dark Waters Rise and Sign of Chaos, with a maddening number of tempo changes, alternating shrieks and growls, overlapping vocals, and general musical mayhem. The more melodic elements that began to appear in Sign of Chaos make themselves apparent once more, with briefly discernable melodic parts in the chaos, and actual melodic and acoustic breaks. Also added to the Cephalectomy sound are some black metal and doom elements, such as wall-of-sound style guitars ala Primordial, to slow, crushing doom. Also added are some hardcore shout-vocals, and Raland Kinley (of Dichotic) as the voice of God, a role I'm certain he was all too eager to play. Yet, it's not all serious, as the Monastat 7-like break near the start of Discerning Thee Apocryphal Divinity clearly demonstrates. Overall, a top-notch album from a killer Canadian band. BTW, check out their website for a bunch of bonus material, including some covers, the Dark Waters Rise Demo, and a rare live video of Cephalectomy. - Chris "Daimon" Wagner, Ontario Metal Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn True Northern Mystigrind!!!!!!! What is that you ask? Mystigrind is as told by the band themselves: "Uncompromising,extreme death metal with melodic Scandinavian metal and a touch of power metal riffing to create a sound that is truely unique." It is nearly impossible to compare CEPHALECTOMY to anything other than their own entity. Some of the influences I heard while lisetening to Eclipsing the Dawn were everything from MALIGNANCY to CEPHALIC CARNAGE to KATAKLYSM to IRON MAIDEN to MAYHEM. If you were to throw all of those above mentioned bands into a big blender,you would have CEPHALECTOMY (or at least a massacre on your hands). Fans of black metal,death metal,grindcore,thrash metal, power metal,and/or any other hybrid of metal will get something out of listening to CEPHALECTOMY's Eclipsing the Dawn. Depending on what genre of metal you most prefer,you will get your own ideas of what Eclipsing the Dawn meens to you. It's like one of those pick your own ending novels where you pick the ending that best suits you. I can not think of even one other band that can top that!!!!! Fuck straight forward song crafting,it's boring most of the time, CEPHALECTOMY knows this. They have sick time-changes,breakdowns,melodies, layer upon layer of varied vocal stylings of sheer brutality. For instance; a song could start off with a beautiful melodic part and then break loose into a whirlwind fury and then into a breakdown to a spoken passage and then into another time-change!!!!!! CEPHALECTOMY have the balls to take chances when other bands just remain the same album after album. Experience True Northern Mystigrind for yourself,and head out and pick up CEPHALECTOMY's Eclipsing the Dawn, it's a complete mindfuck!!!!!! - Jeff, Never Ending Hate Webzine Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn When I was 4 years old I lived in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada, home to Discorporate Music's Cephalectomy. I don't really remember much about living there, but what I do remember is that it seemed like the kind of place that, had I grown up there, I probably would have gone insane, which seems to be exactly what happened to Jason Nichols and Corey Andrews. Cephalectomy play a style of chaotic grind-death that sounds like the reincarnation of early Kataklysm, with the deep grizzly bear growls, banshee shrieks, lyrics and overall atmosphere. Cephalectomy, however, are merely influenced by Kataklysm, their overall sound is all their own, mixing various different elements into one destructive package. Having heard all of their previous material, my first impression when hearing Eclipsing the Dawn was that I couldn't believe just how much the music writing had progressed. The songs aren't merely tossed together; they're carefully crafted and well written. While their last album had a sound that could easily fit into the goregrind genre, Eclipsing the Dawn is the first Cephalectomy recording to have a clean enough production to be able to distinguish all of the elements. Lyrically, the influence of Sylvain Houde and Trey Azagthoth is obvious, with bizarre ramblings fit for the lockdown unit of a local asylum. I suspect Corey actually goes into some sort of trance-state while writing lyrics, insisting all that know him to refer to him as "The Elder One" while wearing a Viking helmet and a cape, constantly quoting the Conan movies, screaming in his car going through the McDonald's drive thru about how he will crush the cook until he hears the lamentations of the women if they screw up his order. Well, at least that's how weird Sylvain got, so I can only assume the same can be true of Mr. Andrews. Overall, the album is hit and miss. Songs like Of Grievance And Exhumation... (The Fallen), Dragons Upon The Mountains Of Mashu and the instrumental Squalid Eyes Of The Impending Treachery are impossible to stop once you've hit play, but others, like Espousing The Lore Of Ancient Mythos and Invocate The Tempests To Castigation are so easy to skip I don't even bother letting the opening riffs begin before skipping to the next tracks. If you're looking for a solid blend of melody and chaos with the most guttural growls in music today, then Eclipsing the Dawn is the album to get, even if you don't like every song, there's enough on here to keep even my fickle tastes happy. - Teufel, Teufel's Tomb Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn Cephalectomy is the brainescape from one man who is doing all the music and writing. Helped with one vocalist/lyricalist and a label. The music is called mystigrind and that should cover it. Lyrics based on fantasy and musically fits the extreme death metal condom. Powerful guitar riffing, tight drums and the brutal vocals are some ingredients. Fast songs but with breaks and start stop parts. Almost 40 minutes of stress release or 40 minutes of physical insults? You may tell me. Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn What...the...fuck IS THIS? Epic technical grindy blackened brutal death? This is simply some of the most different metal to come out recently. I had heard Sign of Chaos before this, it was very good also, not quite up to par because the really good riffs were barely audible through the black metal style dissonant production. But...this...has managed to surpass all of my expectations and become merely a pile of insanely unique noise. In the good sense of noise. Let's talk about the sound style here. They blend some Watchmaker style screams with some unique melodeath riffage, and blasting yet TECHNICAL drums (with some excellent double bass and cymbal work, I might add). There are also some GODLY atmospheric/really scary passages that lead into some songs (like The Ghosts of Reprisal and Strife), that break up the crazy grindy riffage and unholy screaming. Definitely an album to check out. WEIRD MUSIC FOR FUCKING EVER - Spawnhorde, Metal Archives Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn Do you miss old Kataklysm? Do you miss the mystical hyper-blasting and over the top lyrical, otherworldly vocalizations of Sylvain Houde? Well, Country mates Cephalectomy are for you dear reader. Nova Scotia's Cephalectomy have released a superb album that re-creates the Northern hyper-blasting of Sorcery; insanely fast brutal death/grind with surprising amounts of intricate, layered melodies and a Lovecraftian concept with multiple characters (all vocalized with unearthly growls, screams and more screams) with some suitably trancelike interludes slithering amid the horrific chaos. This Canadian duo churn out some wicked songwriting, that is full on Kataklysm worship with some Lykathea Aflame-like ambience thrown in, and the end result is that Eclipsing The Dawn is one heck of a mind-altering ride. The album is a little light in the production side of things, but it actually benefits the complex multi-layered sound, rather than drown the intricacies in a wall of down tuned mud. The programmed drums are seamlessly integrated (I actually could not tell they were programmed until I read it elsewhere) into the maelstrom of the continually shifting guitars. Opening salvo Of Grievance and Exhumation (The Fallen) simply blew me away right out of the gate, (the break at 1:33 being particularly breathtaking) and other than dragging slightly due to longer, more epic songs, the album is pretty much a completely satisfying, liquefying album. As per their obvious peers, songs are broken into various chapters and characters dialogue, often with the shift from song to song undetectable without the LED readout in front of you. As Espousing the Lore of Ancient Mythos starts without a split second hesitation from the already impressive opener, I'm wandering if I’ve ever heard such mindfully melodic brutality that retains both technical savagery and well rounded harmonies, despite the raucous vocals patterns fighting to relay their characters lines. I’ll admit after the first 2 superb songs, the album levels out somewhat, but still manages to deliver the same mix of grindcore chaos and an almost blackened sense of grim yet epic melody. Fairly often, acoustics or synths break up the swirling vortex of monstrous noise (Discerning Thee Apocryphal Divinity, The Ghosts of Reprisal and Strife), and that’s where Lykathea Aflame rose as a comparison, with a nightmarish tranquility and grandiosity mixed in with the already ritualistic atmosphere. The haunting instrumental song Squalid Eyes of Impending Treachery shows Cephalectomy's lack of rigid grindcore schematics, instead allowing themselves to breathe their own air and create a break in the album that fits in with the overall concept as well as allow the listener a breather. Other than those breaks, the album is generally a cyclone of immense power, with very little traditional grindcore grooves or breakdowns. Only Discerning Thee Apocryphal Divinity slows down, and I mean slooooooows down to a molten crawl, with perhaps the longest growl in history. Eclipsing The Dawn certainly creates the Cthulu-ish visage of god-like horror and madness within a musical scope and the short sharp burst of The Sundering of Eternal Sentience puts a brutal exclamation point to a deep album with suitable closure. A perfectly balanced, well executed album of conceptual grindcore that’s not afraid to expand boundaries. - Erik Thomas, DigitalMetal.com Cephalectomy - Eclipsing The Dawn In whirlwind of blasts, tortured shrieks, precision riffing and demonic growls, the blasphemers known as CEPHALECTOMY have returned in 2004 with an album no extreme Metal fan should overlook. Having categorized themselves as "True Northern Mystigrind", one would be hard pressed to more accurately label the aural chaos found on Eclipsing The Dawn, the band's third release. With their 1998 demo Dark Waters and 2000's Sign Of Chaos already on their resume, the band have succeeded in remaining consistent in the underground extreme Metal scene despite their location (CEPHALECTOMY hail from Truro, Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada) and continue to do so with Eclipsing The Dawn. Completely and utterly uncompromising, to label CEPHALECTOMY as merely a Death or Black Metal band would be an insult to the material in question. By layering shrieks and low-end growls over a backdrop of frantic yet extremely tight drumming and precise, oftentimes catchy riffing (with some clean guitars thrown into the mix), Eclipsing The Dawn is as unique as it is chaotic. On the lyrical end, CEPHALECTOMY refuse to take the easy way out by allowing the mystical themes of H.P. Lovecraft to come alive on each of the album's eight compositions, adding yet another dimension to their sound. Even more impressive and more than worthy of mention, is the fact that all of the music apparent on Eclipsing The Dawn, save for additional vocal duties, were performed by one man. His name is Corey Andrews and how he managed to perform all guitars, bass and drums on this album (as well as contributing vocals) is really beyond me. Either way, it is basically impossible to question the effort and commitment that was put into the making of this release, which is something that is apparent over the course of its duration. Fans of all things extreme should easily find something worth banging their heads to upon encountering the madness that is CEPHALECTOMY's latest brew of blasphemy. Though I could further attempt to describe this release, I believe the press release said it best: "Eclipsing The Dawn promises to kill you and each of your family members slowly and painfully with each listen." Need I say more? - Nathanael, The Metal Observer  www.cephalectomy.com
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Cephalectomy
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