Cephalic Carnage has always been known for throwing a wrench into the way extreme metal is played. The first time anyone hears a Cephalic album is usually meet with looks of awe, confusion, and various other displays of emotion; sometimes people will also shit themselves in incomprehension.

Naturally, it’s going to be hard to top Lucid Interval; that album was an insane amalgam of tight, precise grind, jazz, and pure chaos. But Anomalies is a whole new beast. The album is still chaotic as fuck and the humor is still there, but the chaos and experimentation is in an entirely new direction. The hydrogrind is ever-present, but some of the songs are a lot more approachable, the traces of doom hinted at in previous albums are a lot more prevalent here (not to the extent of Halls Of Amenti, though), there are some older, traditional metal and rock vibes, and the songs have a more traditional length to them.

Most songs like "The Will Or The Way", "Kill For Weed", "Litany Of Failure", and parts of "Sleeprace" will fit right in with Cephalic Carnage’s previous repertoire of furious, insane hydrogrind anthems, but the others show a whole new side of Cephalic or further show their mastery of the doom genre. "Piecemaker" begins by sounding like it belongs on an early 80’s hard rock record, then breaks up into a very slow and heavy doom section. The doom worship goes further with "Ontogeny Of Behavior": which is a very lethargic, creeping piece that seriously demonstrates some mind-numbing vocal capacities (when the robo-effects aren’t on).

"Dying Will Be The Death of Me" is the parody of the bunch: in the tradition of Lucid Interval’s "Black Metal Sabbath" the Colorado grindsters make a point-and-laugh stab at metalcore, complete with one giant melodic chorus with clean vocals. Not surprisingly, it is the best metalcore song I’ve ever heard. The melodic chorus isn’t gay as fuck, the clean vocals actually bloody fucking work, and the song is technically pleasing, fast, and most importantly not fucking queer. The 90% of metalcore that’s making the genre seem like one gigantic sweat pile of homosexuals ramming every orifice should put down their guitars and Alternative Press magazines for one fucking minute and listen to "Dying Will Be The Death Of Me": this is how to do metalcore and how to do it fucking well.

Don’t get discouraged by the fact that there are some more traditional hard rock vibes on this album. Somehow Cephalic Carnage manages to effectively wire them in, keep them short, appropriate, and well-performed, and then it’s back to the machinegun-trigger hydogrind. If anything, all it does is further demonstrate Cephalic Carnage’s ability to take from a variety of music sources and somehow put out an excellent album that is still like complete and utter pandemonium at an All-You-Can-Fuck nymphomaniac convention.

The ultimate question though is, "Does this top Lucid Interval?" I’d still have to say that Lucid Interval is the best thing in their discography, but I can’t deny that this record is pretty damn excellent as well. If anything, it’s a solid album that just reinforces how fucking good Cephalic Carnage is. It’s definitely one of the essentials so far this year.

Review byNecro-tron