COFFIN APARTMENT is a Death/Punk/Math/fill-in-the-blank Metal band out of Portland, Oregon, US. The trio formed in 2018, released a self-titled EP in 2019, and on November 20, 2020 (a popular day for album releases) they issued their debut full-length album, "Full Torso Apparition." While the band's name suggests questionable real estate decisions, the title of their latest album reminds me of being in pandemic lockdown and reading Mariko Koike's "The Graveyard Apartment." The actual album, however, reminds me of nothing, which is to say its fusion of everything loud and frenetic creates a unique sound that defies categorization . . . at least in the ever-growing list of Metal subgenres.

The band has accumulated descriptors like "oddball," "off-kilter," and "weirdos" which speaks to the hearty American tradition of slandering those things we don't understand. But to be fair, all those monikers were applied in a positive way, kind of like when people call their best friend a MF'er and their girlfriend a bitch. Words.

Given my limited understanding of Extreme Prog and things like time signatures and chromatic scales, my favorite tracks are the ones that had more cohesion than others. For me, that's "Hyperphagic Blues" and "The Process Of Dehumanization." Tracks I found less favorable were "Derelict Paradise" and "A Quagmire Of Filth And Shame." Now, unless you share my exact sensibilities, those judgements are probably useless and well they should be. My recommendation is to click on over to Bandcamp or YouTube and to listen for yourself.

Thematically, this album comes across as a stark reflection of our current global circumstance, but as the band is from Portland, I would think some of the more recent localized events had an influence on the tone. "Treacherous Togues," "Transient Exuberance," "Scavenger Of Regurgitation" are scathing indictments of our times. Couple that with the grating, discordant melodies - or rather non-melodies - and you got one massively malcontented thesis.

Altogether, COFFIN APARTMENT's "Full Torso Apparition" is a brutal and askew assault. It's disruptive and unnerving. It will get a reaction out of you one way or another. Aesthetically, this isn't the album you'll be playing at your next dinner gathering . . . or maybe it is because there's something desperately wrong with your sense of decorum, which pretty much describes every metalhead, so never mind all that and go ahead check this album out, today.