Indianapolis’ Upheaval is another band signed to Willowtip Records who I’d never heard of prior to receiving this promo. The band refers to themselves as a brutal death metal outfit, however their sound doesn’t fit into that sub-genre even remotely. In actuality the group plays a brand of blackened blasting grinding technical death metal, that can best be described as the Frankenstein of extreme metal. Comparisons can be drawn to many bands. Obvious influences include Cannibal Corpse, Malevolent Creation, Monstrosity and a tiny bit of Suffocation, with splatters of black metal and grind strewn throughout. The band is extremely technically proficient and they all play their instruments flawlessly, from sharp riffs and solos, to blast beats to high shrieks there really is nothing musically wrong with this band. The problem lies within the song writing. It’s as though the group took sheet music of a dozen different bands, cut out random sections and mixed them together attempting to create their own style of music. The music just lacks any real substance. The vocals tend to become extremely irritating in a very short period of time. High pitched gritty snarls work great in black metal, but when you’re playing technical death metal you need variation, and apart from one or two low grunts every 15 minutes, there isn’t too much to be found here. The band honestly reminds me of early God Dethroned, not musically, just in that they display the obvious talent and tools to write great music, however waste in on writing really bland songs. They do show life on the final track, "Into The Gates Of Eternal Suffering", however by then it’s too late to salvage the album. I think most fans of technical Floridian-style death metal will enjoy this group if they can get past the annoying vocals, however fans of heavier and more emotive death metal will most likely not be interested. I’m surprised Jason signed this band as they sound nothing like the other bands on his label, as most are interesting and impressive grind like Circle Of Dead Children and Sadis Euphoria. I probably listened to the 31 minutes and 48 seconds of Upheaval’s Testimony To The Atrocities at least 25 times to try to be as fair as possible, and after the final listen I feel like I just wasted 13 hours and 15 minutes of my life. Hopefully they’ll turn things around as God Dethroned have, only time will tell. Written By: Teufel