Eschaton – Techtalitarian Review
By Thus Spoke
Imagine you are trying to get your friend into a genre of music you love. Perhaps that genre has some unfortunate tropes that even an untrained ear can discern as all instances being relegated to the denigrated status of the lowest common denominator. You know first impressions are crucial, and thus desperately want theirs to be of music that goes beyond those trappings so your friend can share your joy. Let’s say that genre is tech-death, and the album that your friend first comes across in their journey Eschaton’s third, Techtalitarian. The band’s discography heretofore has been solid, but unremarkable, and given a prior emphasis on something closer to deathcore, you feel justified unease. But with a signing by Transcending Obscurity, and an almost entirely fresh lineup to boot, you hope Techtalitarian can break through, to your friend as well as to the wider death metal community.
With chagrin, you acknowledge that Techtalitarian cannot escape its existence as a textbook instance of a tech-death stereotype, for better or for worse. Beyond its comically on-the-nose moniker and aggressively cyberpunk cover art, the music is exactly what you might expect. The fusion of a vocal style that hasn’t quite left deathcore behind1, with the hyperactive arpeggio riffing, and restless and restlessly fast tempo bouncing for which this particular approach to death metal is wedded to. But sticking to the core of a sound need not be a curse if a band either execute it to perfection, thus proving why it is so enduring, or with some subtle flair that makes it their own. In this regard, Eschaton cannot be said to avoid their curse, but Techtalitarian is not without merit, thanks in large part to its nature, which unwittingly or not borrows more than a little of the thrill for which you fell in love with technical death metal in the first place.
Riffs, riffs, and yet more riffs await as you explore Techtalitarian. Par for the course, but also a chance for new guitarist Christian Münzner2 to prove that he can indeed play a guitar really rather well; all the musicians here have great technical prowess. Just the act of pointing this out in preface to discussing the music’s actual substance exemplifies the subgenre’s cliché. The record’s shape evolves but little across its breadth, with the flutters and churning of guitar, and especially pointed percussive pattering melting into a haze of agitation where Eschaton ricochet between ideas. And yet you can’t pretend you’re not enjoying yourself, for at least large segments at a time. Though they evade true memorability, many melodies and chirruping acrobatic riffs, carried on accompanying tides of snappy drumming and rhythmic syncopation, tickle the brain just right (“Blood of the People,” “The Bellicose Duality,” “Antimatter”). In a fickle but not charmless way, Eschaton rotate between the malevolent grooves of The Black Dahlia Murder (“Devour the Contrarian,” “Techtalitarian,” “Castle Strnad”3), the twin guitar flutters of Within the Ruins (“Hellfire’s Woe”), and mixing slammy deathcore with an approximation of the melodic depth of, say, Allegaeon, minus the cleans (“Antimatter”). They can’t quite make up their mind, but they seem to have fun doing it, and you’ll likely have some fun listening.
As entertaining as these segments can be, when stitched together into Techtalitarian, they end up being surprisingly intangible. Once a slick, squealy, super-speedy passage is over, it’s over in order to make room for the next thing. This is compounded by the fact that these rhythmic textures and riffing structures are not even that brilliant—not brain-meltingly gymnastic, or manically groovy, or breathtakingly claustrophobic—but instead almost generic. What ought to be cool comes across as blasé because nothing lies beneath the flashy, snarling, blastbeating surface. And when Escahaton do incorporate something else, they do so with lukewarm commitment; symphonics and choir that occasionally appear (“Hellfire’s Woe,” “Econocracy”) reading exactly like something you’d hear in a Shadow of Intent song, but not even as dramatic. Add to this the inevitably low DR of 4, and the reasonable 45-minute runtime starts to crawl.
Though it feels absurd when the music is this energetic, skilled, and heavy—as is all tech-death—Techtalitarian is not what you want your friend to hear; not first anyway. Its insubstantiality is due to no fault of Eschaton’s talent, but rather their execution. With more imagination and focus, their abilities could blossom into some of the most potent of the subgenre. It already lends itself to a pretty fun time. Eschaton may have a great record in them, but it isn’t Techtalitarian.
Rating: Mixed
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 30th, 2025
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