Gidim (Instrumental)

Album review

It’s amusing to see the kind of unofficial competition that has been going on in the tech-death scene in recent years. While all counts of violence, technicality and speed seem to have skyrocketed in the past decade, there are still groups that are willing to take up the challenge and push the limits still further, some in a more playful way than others. It goes without saying the Rings Of Saturn are part of this group. With Gidim, their fifth album in ten years, the American deathcore duo doesn’t hold back. And thanks to their unique sound and masterful songwriting they manage to stand out from the crowd.
The duo’s futuristic space theme, emphasised by the album’s almost clinical production, is applied to an impressive brutality and rampaging blastbeats. The guitars (which find a middle ground between “thick jabbing riffs” and a perpetual solo) take the lion’s share while still managing - despite being incredibly dense - to be digestible and melodic. The break-downs are always well-timed and the various acoustic tracks that scatter the album (Face the Wormhole, Bloated and Stiff) allow the paralysed listener to catch their breath before the next explosion. The first time you listen to the record you may feel like you’re hurtling through space at 1000km/h though with a little perseverance the rich songwriting and melodies of each of Gidim’s tracks soon becomes evident. It’s not exactly accessible at first, but it’s an essential album for every deathcore fan looking for a fresh sound in a fairly saturated genre. © Théo Roumier/Qobuz