Band: The Faceless
Title: Planetary Duality
Label: Lifeforce Records
Distribution: Suburban.
Release date: 23/02/2009
Review: CD

The Faceless hail from the sunny shores of Los Angeles, but that’s the only earthly warmth that can be brought into direct connection with this band. This debut album is opposite to everything that stands for happiness and joy.
Death Metal, yet of the progressive kind, it’s a form I usually dislike. However, if performed the way The Faceless do, I must apologize. The band recorded an album that surprises time after time. At the same time, it is not an easy one to digest, yet after listening several times to it, the different layers become clearer.
Every song varies a lot and combines slow and darker parts with blasting ones, the songs are interspersed with technical and kinetic hooks and breaks, and the sometimes mathematically constructed riffs are of a high quality.  The addition of acoustic parts, melodic solos and keyboards, as well as the massive sound, are other extra’s that make this album so extra-terrestrially extra-ordinary. These ingenious songs are filled with both experiment and confidence, a duality similar to the lyrical concepts (what about the title, for example?).
This band is highly recommended to every fan from Cynic or later Death over Atheist or Deicide to Necrophagist and Nile.

90/100

Ivan Tibos.