Coprocephalic are a project with members from both the U.S.A. and Taiwan. The band was formed a couple of years ago by American guitar player Christiani Peluso, formerly of e.g. Cerebral Engorgement or Splattered, and Taiwanese Guttural Corpora Cavernosa-members Hsuan Liu (drums) and Larry Wang (vocals; also known from Beyond Cure, Gorepot etc. In 2013 Inherited Suffering released Coprocephalic’s debut Gluttonous Chunks, and earlier this year the trio signed to Lacerated Enemy Records, which first resulted in the release of the MCD / EP Desolation Of Conjoined Embodiment. The tracks from that mini-recording, for your info, also appear on the sophomore full length The Oath Of Relinquishment.
This second album comes with grandiose artwork, I think. It was done by Ken Sarafin, who also created cover art for the likes of Hate Division, Axeslasher, The Bridal Procession, The Kennedy Veil, Acrania a. o. (Sarafin Concepts, by the way, is the name of this guy’s enterprise). The Oath Of Relinquishment features vocal guest appearances by nobody else but Angel Ochoa (Cephalotripsy, Condemned [the Californian one], Disgorge), Jeremiah Blue Jensen (of Guttural Secrete-fame, and now also in young Euphegenia), and Matti Way (former singer of Disgorge, and also formerly or currently in Abominable Putridity, Pathology [here too the Californian one] and many others).
Seen the members’ other occupations, and with the guests being kept in mind, one can guess what kind of lullabies we will deal with by means of this album. And indeed, it has not much to do with church gospels or post-geriatric poetry. And that’s clear as from Desolation Of Conjoined Embodiment (the intro, named after the album, was somewhat mysterious, yet a fine piece to make the listener hungry…). Coprocephalic indeed bring a technical and brutal form of modern Death Metal, mixed with slamming elements from Grind- and Deathcore. There is a huge differentiation in speed, to start with. The whole experience dwells in between the extremes of eruptive blasts at the one hand, and totally decelerating slowed-down moments at the other, with everything in between. And believe me if I say that those extremes interact every couple of seconds; there are no ten consecutive seconds with the same speed on the whole album, I guess. In the vein of the ‘essence’, the whole is performed with a technical creativity courtesy of only some of Mater Terra’s most experienced and notorious acts. The breaks and hooks, the slamming passages versus integer moments, the Grind-laden throats, the repetitive and low-tuned riffs and brutally hammering rhythm section, and the eerie melody lines result in amalgam constructions that show no mercy, not once, at all.
I am sure that fans of, especially, the North-American Grind / Blast / Tech-Death scene might appreciate this effort, yet every open-minded sick-head might be a potential fan.