When I heard this band's debut album The Beautiful Sickness 4 years ago, I pretty much thought it was one of the most genuinely refreshing takes on extreme metal at that point in time. Any metalhead who had even a remote inclination towards the more experimental bands, ala Voivod, Prong, Fear Factory, Godflesh, Celtic Frost – i.e., bands playing heavy as fuck guitar driven music while experimenting with the things surrounding it, would've had to hear it to believe how great this was.

The brothers Kevin and Tim work this band in Kevin's studio that produces a lot of cool bands like Raven and Dysrhythmia. They write music at their convenience, play all the instruments between themselves, record it all as and when they come up with cool ideas and generally run this as an exclusively studio effort. They got Eric Forrest from Voivod to sing on the first album and he did a great job lending his voice to the already-set pieces of music.

Anyone who'd heard that first album A Beautiful Sickness back when it was released, sure has been looking forward to a new album by these good blokes and hell, when I first heard The Conjoined three months ago I was immediately convinced that they haven't disappointed. But soon, with more listens, I realized that they've actually managed to out-do themselves.

Moving to a Greek Label called Burning Star Records and encompassing the aforementioned influences and more to come up with some great metal along with the occasional more modern brutal blast-beat-laden parts, experimental and grand arrangements using guest musicians playing trumpets, cellos, keyboard synths among others, this runs at almost 40 minutes and is absolutely a tip-top effort. Damn, that sentence would've been a paragraph if not for this one.

The experiments of P:FF continue with the various percussions and the programmed/sampled drums alongside some ass kicking live-played drums. These are just to accompany the real deal. That is, groovy riffy heavy thrashy deathy metal at its core. These geeks like to experiment with their sounds and toy with various ideas for their songs within that framework.

For a studio band that does a lot of work just adding to the already recorded parts, the guitars sound absolutely terrific, often dissonant and raw as it should be. Full marks to the mighty Gibsons, superb ears for tones and the great hands fiddling with the knobs.

Eric knows Tim and Kevin much better now than during the first album and hence the chemistry seems better, he's worked with them on the lyrics and has come up with all the great vocal lines as a team too. Frankly, I think this is the best coming from Eric till date. Some, if not most of the ideas here are just mindblowing. Got to watch out for Eric's band called E-Force that's about to release a new album this year.

In a nutshell, this is one of the most promising new bands. That says a lot, I know.

Give them a chance, which implies half a dozen listens at least, with full concentration - preferably with your mobile phones switched off and the music system cranked all the way up so you can hear everything that's going on. There's more to swallow than a jap girl caught in a bukkake filled with black guys.

Label: Burning Star Records

Year of Release: 2007

Also make sure you read my interview with the band at this location