The Bordeaux bruisers in Exocrine kick off the  2024 technical death metal calendar with their fifth studio record Legend, following their previous release 2020’s The Hybrid Suns. I am no stranger to Exocrine’s work and favorably reviewed their 2020 release Maelstrom which can be read here.

Legend continues the thematic evolution of the cyber eldritch apocalypse, which is smack dab in trope city for modern tech-death records. Exocrine continue to expertly dance between low-end djenty grooves via their use of downtuned eight-stringed guitars as well as the hyperspeed riffage, blast beat and double bass-laden arrangements, and all the accouterments that pervade the space of modern technical death metal. Exocrine doesn’t shy away from including expansive soundscapes via the use of synth layers, electronic arrangements, as well as jazzy sax sections a la Rivers of Nihil to add that extra pizzazz and spice to the more expected extreme metal fare.

That isn’t to say that Legend isn’t chock full of aggressive adrenaline movements, “Eidolon” has riffs that could be pulled straight from the Archspire playbook, which is praise in itself since that band is now considered among the gold-standard acts of the hyper percussive staccato brand of tech-death. However, Exocrine plays with tempo and mood interweaving slower more melodic sections and lead overdubs, which frankly become the listener’s anchor points in the colossal “red mist” of notes and blasts that are constantly barraged at our ears, thereby staving off listener fatigue at least by a little bit. Solid examples of these melodic anchors feature in “The Altar of War”, while my favorite melodic hook comes in the central motif on “Dragon” in the second half of the record.

One of my quibbles with the production of Maelstrom was their choice of “raw”er sounding guitar tones which led to many of the busier sections being muddy and indistinguishable. In stark contrast, The Hybrid Suns overcorrected in that regard, with extremely “synthetic” guitar tones, excessively compressed and quantized to give the entire record a robotic feel. Fortunately, Exocrine found a better happy medium with Legend, the riffs feel more articulate yet still have enough room to breathe, without sounding overly mechanical. A big part of that is also the songwriting choices allowing for more emphasis on simpler grooves to take the pedal off the gas allowing for the more complex arrangements to shine through and allowing the listener more stamina to discern the complexities of the riffs, solos, and overdubs.

Exocrine tries its best to make each track on the record feel distinct and recognizable, to varying results. While there are standout sections on various tracks, Legend isn’t completely immune to falling victim to the malaise that plagues most tech-death and other extreme metal genre releases: the tracks begin to bleed into each other after a while; especially if consumed as a background activity. Sadly, the track names on Legend are also quite lackluster by tech-death standards. While many bands lean extremely heavily into the “sci-fi word generator” trope for comedic results, Exocrine have over-corrected in the opposite direction. With track names like “Legend”, “Life”, “Eidolon”, “Warlock”, and “Dragon”, and “The Oath”, it seems like very little effort was spent making the titles pop in an age where every little bit counts to retain the consumer’s limited attention in the streaming world with ever-decreasing attention spans.

“Legend” is a small step up but mostly a lateral step in the Exocrine catalog, and they play with different elements to keep their tracks intense, dense, yet fresh, to varying degrees of appeal. The great part is that Exocrine appears to be extremely competent and extremely consistent, two of the most important qualities required for an extreme metal band to succeed in a quickly crowding space. Keep an eye out for these tech-death baguettes!