If I weren't such a gentlemen, I'd say the dudes of Fallujah have tried to force innovation. They have a bit of a history of trying to cut the line of creative evolution, which doesn't make "The Flesh Prevails" much of a surprise. On "Leper Colony," Fallujah did the Abigail Williams thing of adding pseudo-black metal influence to the deathcore recipe, in the process creating something that made even the most abhorrent music on the face of the planet look appetizing. During the height of the technical death metal fad, Fallujah was following suit while acting more progressive. Here, "The Flesh Prevails" continues another shift in sound, this time using a progressive death metal approach with minor shoegaze elements. The fact that it sounds as such, made during a time when the shoegaze-meets-metal thing has velocity thanks to the fart-sniffers of Deafheaven, instantly means Fallujah is ahead of the curb and pushing metal into a brave new era! Yippee skippee!Of course, the line of thought that a band doing something foreign to a specific sound (e.g., progressive technical death metal with a shoegaze coating) is instantly respectable and worthy of praise is downright stupid. Shoehorning in any irrelevant influence and pandering it as innovation generally sets up an attractive gimmick, but not much else. The fact that "The Flesh Prevails" has created a little buzz around metal media outlets is baffling to me. Like a lot of groups trying to sell themselves as innovators, the initial exposure of whatever Fallujah tries to do here plants the seeds of infatuation, but soon the brief lure dries out and yields little to praise, save for a bud some snotty little sh*t could crush without even trying.
Fallujah more or less attacks from the point of view of progressive death metal, showing technical showmanship à la The Faceless or Job For A Cowboy with complex arrangements akin to Cynic and Atheist. The big problem here is that nothing the band does sticks in any way at all. They throw around complex riffs and rhythms over intricate percussion, somehow conjuring this pure, otherworldly atmosphere. While hearing "The Flesh Prevails" at first induces a sense of angelic chaos, the magic is soon lost on the constant instrumental ejaculation. Something like this is completely devoid of hooks or memorable bits lurking in the ether, instead coming off as a run-of-the-mill, disposable piece of mundane technical death metal hiding behind a progressive lens and a shoegaze facade so thin you could stick your dingus through it.
It's actually nice when the singer walks off; a good chunk of the album features instrumentals or experimental cuts that aren't drowned in generic deathcore-esque vocals. "Chemical Cave" has moments of serene atmosphere "The Flesh Prevails" so obviously fails to grasp, while "Alone With You," featuring a guest female vocalist in lieu of growls, comes close to supplying at least a minor sense of enthrallment. However, the other tracks are weak, too stuck on technical ability that goes nowhere. Giving credit where credit is due, perhaps the collective skill is something to admire, but these performances have been mirrored or surpassed by countless progressive/technical death metal acts who have had better understandings and a more concise collective than Fallujah. Add the paper-thin shell of innovation, the vapid vocals, and Fallujah's obfuscating sense of direction, and that's "The Flesh Prevails" in a nutshell. Don't buy into the craze; this will go in one ear and out the other.