On the edge of constant musical refinement, yet it is a never ending process as nothing can be considered a flawless venture. On the other hand, no one can deny the fact that the hard an artist works, the better he will demonstrate his skills effectively and in colossal levels. Nonetheless, and I will keep up the contradictory for just a tad longer there, the process of enhancement, and the reach of articulate sophistication, can be pleasing but also destructive. I have always been somewhat perplexed about musical showmanship, or accurately state, technical music. I won't call it a show off, because it is not. Musicians worked and practiced hard in order to stretch to high standards technical altitudes, although writing music such as this, and here it is all about Death Metal, and its technical alter ego, it can turn out monstrous, yet soulless from within. Being soulless isn't a constant factor within all such releases, but it may occur. Following the debut album of DISCHORDIA, a trio from Oklahoma City, USA, named "Project 19", via Rogue Records America, I came about to discern a band with mighty influences from the extreme technical world of Metal like, MESHUGGAH, GOJIRA or the infamous DECAPITATED. Nonetheless, I also stumbled upon a band that even with its vigor and motivation that its release sent me a clear message that this is only the beginning with a lot of work to be done.

At first, other than bits and pieces, I couldn't make much out of "Project 19". Other than being clouded with a halo of mystery, it lacked to create such an interest on my part. When it comes to playing skills, no doubt this trio is in the zone. The trio created heavily formatted arrangements wrote several ample riffing, attempted to divert the genre into new boundaries, yet in the process also pledge in servitude for technical values over the material's flow and comprehension to listeners. As I wrote earlier, this is no way a show off of playing attributes, I didn't find indications of that, yet the songs of "Project 19" are all around the place, twisting and turning until at times I found no sense. "Zone of Perpetual Darkness", "The Grand Design" and "Condemning Certainty", which at last stepped out of the tedious essence demonstrated on the former two tracks, were virtually characterless, droned riffing, a few solo attempts but nothing soothing, lacked that great potency of Death Metal, which is even presented on the genre's modernized version. Being too technical isn't the band's fault here, no sir, yet I felt nothing from listening to those songs, turned to stone or with an iron heart.

Nevertheless, I couldn't negate that DISCHORDIA were a sham as with "When She Saw Him", "There are No Words" and the hidden track that I received with the album called "Primer", I saw the other side of cleverness and technical superiority. Though I didn't quite valued the acoustic / softer passages within the earlier tracks of the list, as those sounded like a useless intermission that resembled a recess to tune the instruments, the ones displayed on the songs I mentioned neatly connected the dots between the harsher points. "Primer", a nearly 10 minutes of playing, fulfilled the promise within DISCHORDIA's merits and I do hope that this remark will make a buzz within the band's direction. Therefore you have it, a technical skilled band with the right sets of qualities, but needs to hone its extreme Metal perspective.