REVIEW: GOROD – “The Orb”

The French technical death metal band Gorod has been releasing records for almost as long as I have been alive. Even as someone who would regard technical death metal as their genre of passionate consumption, Gorod has been a band that has always fallen by the wayside. Process of a New Decline was the only record I gave any kind of due diligence, but unfortunately, it was at a time in my metal journey when my ears were not acclimatized to the trappings of the genre and soured my overall experience. Now, as my own years wane, my tastes have broadened and it was high time I gave this band another chance at a first impression. Reviewing their latest offering The Orb is an honor, to say the least. This is their seventh full-length record, following 2018’s Aethra.

At the outset, The Orb is a comprehensive yet cohesive slab of progressive-tinged technical death metal. Gorod’s flavor of tech-death has been a masterful blend of Necrophagist’s hyperspeed note salads with neoclassical spice a la Cynic and progressive elements more akin to a band like Gorguts. A modern band that would go toe-to-toe with this iteration of Gorod would be current tech-death giants Obscura (and their offshoot Obsidious). The Orb is definitely an album that would find frequent replay value for fans of Obscura. However, Gorod isn’t without their own tricks, seemingly from being in the tech-prog racket for around thirty years!

A personal grievance for this subgenre is when bands delve deeper into the proggier side of the songwriting spectrum, leaning more towards the Tech and losing some of the Death metal side of things. Fortunately, with tracks like opener “Chrematheism”, kicking us right in the throat with aggressive riffs, Gorod tells us in no uncertain terms that The Orb still aspires to be a death metal record. Heck, even “We Are The Sun Gods” opens with an almost slam metal riff, before jumping into the deep end of very familiar string-skippy Gorod goodness. The soaring third act of this song is among the reasons I keep coming back to this genre: it is commentary that you can write dense arrangements that can still arouse an intended emotion.

To bring up some of the aforementioned tricks, the title track “The Orb” hits us with an ambient synthwave-esque little keyboard jingle which is nostalgic with its use of retro-pad tones, before treating us to more-paced progressive metal arrangements with clean vocals that remind us of a cross between older Opeth with a tinge of Between the Buried and Me. However, it is the run of “Savitri”, “Breeding Silence”, “Victory”, and “Waltz of Shades” that truly showcases the versatility of styles that Gorod has to offer on The Orb. “Savitri” (Hindu solar goddess) is an aptly named exotic track chock full of off-kilter riffs with an opener that could have been written by Neuraxis (RIP!), exciting rhythmic choices overlaid with quieter clean guitar riffs, and soaring guitar solos. In contrast “Breeding Silence” and “Victory” are more straightforward tech-death tracks, which is probably why these tracks jumped to the forefront of my own biased tastes. Gorod even toys with blackened sensibilities with “Waltz of Shades”.

Look, I cannot possibly sit here and tell you just how competent, nay superlative, the musicians of Gorod are at their craft. Guitarists Mathieu Pascal and Nicolas Alberny, founding members and longtime guitarists respectively are truly gifted not only at their technical chops but also at their ability to harness elements from diverse tropes into their own repertoire. In contrast, drummer Karol Diers is relatively new to the roster, only serving on their latest records, yet provides the backdrop necessary for the guitarists to weave their magic, especially when coupled with the tasty basslines courtesy of Benoit Claus. As with most tech-death records, The Orb has plenty of sections where the bass is allowed to shine, yet it is never enough to satiate our souls, and so we wish there were more arrangements where the basslines could finesse their way into the limelight instead of merely providing rumbling grooves.

Also, new-ish to the game is vocalist Julien Deyres. One of the keystone elements of The Orb is the diversity of the vocal performances courtesy of Deyres. With both clean and distorted vocals, Julien transforms similar riffs from the progressive metal spheres to the traditional death metal realms and effortlessly jumps between the two extremes. The clean vocals seem apt to the music it is supporting and don’t feel hammed up like many clean vocal performances are wont to do. Something truly unique is the ability of the vocal performances to sound like different bands depending on the timbre chosen and the riffs over which they are laid. For example, the thrashier gruffier vocal lines laid over legato riffs remind us of Psycroptic or BTBAM, whereas nearly the same vocal style over tremolo-picked sections pleads Ihsahn/Emperor! The clean vocals and growls over proggier sections instantly make us miss old-school Opeth as well!

The production of The Orb is “mellower” than we have come to expect in this genre. The riffs don’t seem nearly as jagged as something similar say on a Revocation or Psycroptic record. The upside to this choice is that even lengthier tracks and dense songwriting don’t feel as fatiguing to the listener. The downside is that much of the death metal punch or oomph is lost with the edges rounded out.

The Orb is a technically masterful record written and arranged by musicians well-versed in their craft over decades in the scene. Gorod doesn’t shy away from introducing new elements, repurposing elements from other bands/genres, yet still anchoring their riffs and songs to a very firm and familiar ground.