Phaze 1

(Scarlet)
by Martin Popoff

Sick, thick, and hard as brick, Phaze 1 is the long-considered jackhammered masterwork of Lyzanxia brothers David and Franck Potvin, along with percussive maelstrom Dirk Verbeuren of Scarve and Soilwork fame. Images of Strapping’s City immediately come to mind, as the listener is confronted with a vaulted impressive roarcore wall of textures and infinite arrangement through which the most minute pinpricks of arcane and soul-edifying melody stab through to no discernible warming. Essentially, there’s a seductive sense of monotone, really, like Fear Factory on 11, Mnemic also coming to mind, even Meshuggah, but only in this precious melodic anti-space. It all makes sense when you dive into the concept of the album, the creation of a human subspecies entirely and amorally one-tracked toward destruction and chaos. Synch that up with the nasty cover art and the unrelenting music enclosed (almost all and always up on a plateau of sorts), and the deluge makes sense. It’s like these beings are fueling their impossible quest through crack, drowning their manic days through drugs. And the trio writing their life story? Well, like I say, this is blurry, progressive thrash of an impossibly note-dense nature, more of everything, and then add some more, that is, until “Truce,” where an eerie calm sets in…
(www.scarletrecords.it)