Whether it was the fact that they’ve never been able to hold together a consistent lineup, or their decision to release their albums domestically on their own label – whatever the reason, Monstrosity have always been one of the tragically overlooked bands of the vaunted Florida death metal scene. On this, their second album, however, the band left an indelible mark on the world of technical death metal, and perhaps altered its trajectory in a way few give them credit for.
As brutal and punchy as any album released at the time, Millennium also stands head and shoulders above the rest of Monstrosity’s discography for its mind-bending technicality – an element that’s since gone missing from the band’s repertoire. The songwriting tandem of drummer Lee Harrison and guitarist Jason Morgan put together ten songs full of the kind of arcane rhythm structuring and acrobatic fretwork that only the likes of Suffocation, Atheist and Cynic had dared attempt at the time. This adventurousness becomes evident within the first few seconds of opener “Fatal Milennium”, which throws the listener for a pretzel loop over the first handful of bars, shifting effortlessly from a classic thrash riff to a flurry of blasting mayhem, then a nasty fill, before settling into one of the more memorable grooves in all of death metal history.
Over the first four songs – each one a classic – Monstrosity displays a stunning level of versatility, often missing from technical death metal, offering up riff after meaty riff in a wide variety of picking patterns, often with wild, asymmetrical rhythms. But what’s most impressive might be the hookiness, which so many other tech-death bands are sadly devoid of. My personal favorite track here is probably “Dream Messiah”, which features one of the catchiest intro riffs ever – a barrage of staccato alternate picking that also resurfaces after the chorus and at the end of the song.
But what really sets this album apart and in many ways keeps it from succumbing to one of the genre’s pitfalls wherein all the songs start to blend together is the epic “Fragments of Resolution”. This is a monstrous [heh] atmospheric doom track, seemingly inspired by the likes of Confessor and Solitude Aeturnus, which effectively bisects the album and serves as a very welcome change of pace after the relentless speed of the first four songs. While not at all lacking in heaviness and intensity, this song provides a much-needed breather before heading into another tech-death assault on the last half of the album. It also exhibits Monstrosity’s keen sense of arrangement, not just for songs, but for entire albums – something that, again, most of their contemporaries and followers lack.
The performance on Millennium is, in a word, perfect. Harrison, the band’s one and only mainstay over the years, is perhaps the most underappreciated drummer in all of metal, rolling out some of the most inventive percussion patterns in the genre, and pulling off a lot of jaw-droppingly difficult, jazz-inspired rhythms seamlessly and effortlessly. Morgan’s playing is equally impressive. but Scott Burns’ typically confined, scooped production offers little breathing room for bass virtuoso Kelly Conlon [fresh off his stint in Death] to show off his talents.
When all’s said and done, this album is a true benchmark in the history of the tech-death genre. Though it was overshadowed by Suffocation’s Pierced From Within, which was written and recorded around the same time, its influence is nonetheless evident in bands like Psycroptic, Spawn of Possession and Gorod – none of which, frankly, holds a candle to Monstrosity when it comes to songwriting and intensity. After Millennium, Monstrosity would part ways with Jason Morgan and go in a more traditional FLDM direction. This was probably the most sensible move, since trying to top this disc in the same style would’ve been a Sisiphean endeavor.
rafazardly 