WIDOW'S PEAK is a technical death metal band from Canada who formed in 2016.  'Claustrophobe' is their debut full length album.  The band has also released an EP. This was a difficult album for me to review.  It checks off all the box on everything that a tech death fan could ever want in the genre.  So on one hand, the musicianship is absolutely stunning--anyone would be a damn fool to question the abilities of anyone in this band.  Crazy riffs, mind blowing solos, creative drumming, insane bass, huge vocals....it is all here.  But on the other hand, none of the songs MOVE me.  Music is a highly emotional form of entertainment, one I hold to my heart very dearly.

And while I enjoyed my time spent with this album, I can say that nothing really sounded like it came from the heart to me.  Don't get me wrong-I'm sure it was written and played from the heart.  But on a personal level, nothing here really made me feel like I was listening to anything more than badass musicians that play so hardcore that the album comes off as robotic and cold. So maybe checking off all the boxes is part of the problem with the album.  The songwriting is on point for being very off the charts techy.  But that same songwriting didn't leave any room for something to stand out to me.  I didn't hear anything that made me want to go back and listen to it again forty times because I just couldn't get enough. In essence, the album is an absolute banger but doesn't really stay around much in my head once it ends.

After a short intro, the title track bursts with some rather impressive vocals.  The cadence of the vocal patterns work pretty well within parameters of the song, an element that makes the only song on the album that really grabbed me. The bass slaps hard on 'The Worming Hour' before the band barrels ever forward.  They spit riffs like a dragon spits far and leaves nothing alive.  As impressive as their fury is on this song, especially the rapid fire assault from the vocals, it just feels insane for insanity's sake and that doesn't hold any water for me. At this point, all the songs sound about the same. None of them are actually bad, and being consistent is certainly something I appreciate, but none of them stand out enough from each other either.

'Heartworms I Aorta' and 'Heartworms II Vena Cava' are the two more interesting tracks in the album's later half because they offer a little more dynamics with their atmosphere  than the rest of the tracks. Ultimately, this is definitely not a bad album but technical for the sake of it just doesn't do it for me.  If you're a fan of this style, then ignore my scores because you'll love it.  Everyone else, your mileage will vary.