Orchidectomy - A Prelate's Attrition (Unmatched Brutality Records; 2008)

Today I have the pleasure of reviewing a band from my current city of residence, Toronto. I'm originally from Boston but since coming to Toronto for college I've become very fond of the city so I always like to hear that there are good bands coming from the area. I've actually known about Orchidectomy for a while and their demo stirred up a lot of positive buzz in the scene. Since then though they have had all sorts of problems with their label and it seemed like this album would never come out. Well it's out now and it was worth the wait.

On Orchidectomy's last.fm page, they are described as "similar to Wormed and Brodequin with more variation than the latter." This is a pretty good description to start with. A Prelate's Attrition is filled with Wormed like slow, pounding slams and Brodequin's noisy blasts. There's more to it though. I can hear influence from Stabwound with pinch harmonics and groovy sections. I can hear similarities to fast-slam bands like Abysmal Torment. This album is like a sampler of the best bands of the genre. Sometimes if a band tries to do too much, they end up sucking at everything and being really flat. This is definitely not the case with Orchidectomy. Rather they create great riffs with influences from all around the slam world. I really can't see someone disliking this album, as there is so much to love.

The production on A Prelate's Attrition is on the rawer end which I like, but I know some people prefer cleaner production. Either way the production doesn't really obscure any riffs so I doubt anyone will have a huge problem with it.

The biggest problem I can see is that this album doesn't have any completely amazing moments. However few bands do, and even fewer bands are as consistently great as Orchidectomy. A Prelate's Attrition is just a shade below being a fabulous album and as is it one of the better albums to come out this year. I definitely recommend getting this.

Note: I think there is still some drama between the band and the label. I think the band may or may not have gotten their CDs to sell yet. I don't really know what's going on but whatever it is I'd avoid UBR if you are ordering this. There are faster and cheaper labels to order from.

Also if you are downloading this beware of downloading the unmixed version. Apparently it sounds much worse than the finished album.