When everything is going modern nowadays, expect from the ones who truly wishes to preserve the older ways, especially in Metal music, the rest will indulge the direction the scene is going to. I have thought about how Metal could be infused with Pop, yet there is Glam Metal and AOR that will suggest otherwise. However, I believe that there are certain levels where Pop can influence and where not. In the case of the modern, melodic Deathcore band of MENTAL DEFECT, Pop has taken quite a role in the orchestration of their material. Their debut album via Equinoxe Records, "Longplayer", is the absolute illustration of effect of when Pop, alongside its current partner in the image of Electro, takes over a Metal release and dangles it. Maybe it is a matter of taste, but I couldn't find any sense in it.

In general we are talking about a five, or six piece of a band, as I don't really know if they have or had a permanent bass player, that uses both touchy and Popish like female vocals together with a brutish low to high end growler as it is still a Deathcore and it has to show. The band's music on "Longplayer" sounds diverse enough between the harshness of Death Metal, which includes semi-Gothenburg style commonplace melodic and a line of simple riffing following a series of punching rhythms, to the soft taps of Pop, which are conveyed mainly by the elegant vocalic patterns of the female vocalist Clodi and the huge cloud of synthesized background that on several occasions aids the melodic end of the guitars. From my end, I sometimes sensed as if the Synth was taking too much off the guitars as it was pretty darn overwhelming. There were a few areas where I had the impression MENTAL DEFECT issued a few breaking points in their music like odd time signatures, like on the solid "Imhotep", and others alike, yet I suspect it was nothing more than a mistimed, on purpose, bridge section.

Since Pop was involved the album was pretty much flowing; I was dazed by several of the tracks that were both good or beyond average while still keeping a Metal edge like "Age of Ashes", "Won't Grow Up" and "May the Force Be With You". I must admit that without Clodi's vocals this album won't have gone anywhere. She really made a difference with her singing. I felt in overall that there is something to work with here even if I simply detested the remixes presented on the last two tracks of the release that were excruciating to the ear. MENTAL DEFECT channeled a sort of unordinary sphere with their material but the outputs weren't that overpowering but there is promise...