I’ve been waiting for this release for several years, only because I finally wanted to hear Imagery on CD. When I first got to know Neuraxis, they’d only just released their aforementioned debut full length, and had sent me a promo tape to review. I liked it enough that a few years passed and I found myself really wanting to listen to it again, but, couldn’t find the tape anywhere and the CD had already sold out. Skip ahead a few years, and once again Willowtip Records comes through and serves up not only Imagery, but the band’s other two full length releases A Passage Into Forlorn and Truth Beyond on a two disc set! I have to admit, when I bought the CD, my only interest was simply in listening to Imagery once more. I’d more or less lost interest in the band when their original singer Maynard Moore left the band to become a born again Christian/hip hop/dance, something or other. I’m not sure what happened with him exactly, but something tells me he and Sylvain Houde stand on opposite street corners in downtown Montreal yelling at one another, Sylvain going on about how he’s an elder God, and Maynard yelling about how there is only one true God. Actually, setup a drum kit and some guitars and hand the two of them microphones and you may have yourself a pretty brutal band. Anyway, when Maynard left, Neuraxis recorded two promos with a rotating line-up which took the band’s style from a chaotic technical-grind sound to a more paint-by-numbers melodic death metal sound, which put me off hearing anything else they’d done. Well, skip ahead to the present, and I figured I’d give the two other full lengths they’d recorded since a spin, after I got a chance to listen to Imagery once again. Disc two starts with Imagery in all of its chaotic, barbaric, savage intensity that left me salivating 8 years ago. Songs like "A Temporal Calamity", "Oscillated To Intelligence", "Cyberwar" and "Lid To Your Soul" are what I’ve been craving, and listening to Maynard’s snarls and shrieks, mixed with the shredding guitars and clickity-click bass drum once again fill me with an uncontrollable urge to flail around like an angry ape grunting like a wild boar. After windmilling my way through Imagery I figured I may as well listen to their second full length, A Passage Into Forlorn, which just happens to be on the second half of the second CD of this set. 10 seconds into listening to it for the first time, I have to say I was completely floored. If you listen to both albums back to back you won’t even be able to believe the same band not only wrote, but recorded it. The core of the band remained the same between the two releases with guitarists Rob and Steven and bassist Yan writing and recording, but the change in drummer and vocalist are stunning. The opening track "Unite" is one of the heaviest and unique melodic death metal tracks I’ve heard in a long time, instantly bringing to mind comparisons of At The Gates mixed with Cephalic Carnage, Kataklysm and Cryptopsy. They don’t sound like they’d mix well together at all, but, somehow they do. The riffing on every track is infinitely more complex than on Imagery and the drumming is incredible, definitely a step up in both regards. The vocals aren’t as chaotic and varied as those of Maynard Moore’s, but the vocalist they chose definitely fits the band’s new musical direction, mixing both typical Swede-death shrieks with inhuman grizzly bear growls. I loved Imagery for it’s savage blunt brutality, but I’ve got to admit, though I didn’t like their two promos leading up to this, A Passage Into Forlorn is one solid piece of heavy-and-angry-as-fuck melodic tech-death and I openly kick myself for not listening to this sooner, even though Steven had sent me a copy of it a few years ago (sorry, dude). Comparing the two releases is like comparing night to day, you listen to the track "The Drop" on Imagery then the re-recording on A Passage Into Forlorn and it’s not even the same piece of music. Amazing. Finishing out the second disc are a track from one of the two aforementioned promos, which still doesn’t impress to this day, and a live track which makes me laugh every time I hear it. TABARNAC! Anyone outside of Quebec won’t get it, but that’s okay. Now, back I go to disc one, the band’s most recent release Truth Beyond… After hearing how mind-blowing A Passage Into Forlorn is I’ll admit my anus was dilated with anticipation, but, listening to Truth Beyond… was honestly a bit of a let down. The technical aspect went up a few levels even higher, and the overall musicianship is so far improved from Imagery it’s not even funny. The vocals on this release are more in the Sylvain Houde-era Kataklysm range for the most part with the deep grizzly bear vocals being employed throughout most of the songs, and the overall speed has come down a bit. It’s still a great, super heavy, super technical album, but it just didn’t catch my attention like the other two releases. I never, ever do this, but… I’d like to publicly, openly and honestly admit to Steven Henry and the rest of Neuraxis; I’m sorry for ever having doubted you. The material you created after those two promo tapes far exceeded my expectations. To everyone else, all I have to say is two words; buy it! If you love technical death metal, be prepared to strip down and lube up, I just wouldn’t recommend thinking about Steven Henry while doing it, that body hair is just disturbing.

Written By: Teufel