Daath's 2004 debut album, Futility, may have been a modest, self-financed affair, but it wasted no time in introducing the Atlanta, GA-based group's ambitious, electronic/industrial death metal, laden with mystical lyrics uniquely inspired by the Jewish Kabbalah. In addition, the sextet showed a few minor traces of nu-metal in the Jonathan Davis-like vocal styles scattered across 90-second intro The One and subsequent cuts Child Says (highly syncopated, borderline nonsensical) and Concentrate Living (tormented mewling), along with a twisted, Faith No More-like je ne sais quoi about the mysterious, genre-immune Slow. Meanwhile, the curiously "tidy" riffing style underpinning the provocatively named Blender for the Baby recalls Cleansing-era Prong, and the doomy trip-hop of Crystasis has much in common with Australian space-metal nerds Alchemist -- both songs revealing even more layers to Daath's eclectic tableau. Yet none of these tangential influences can compete with Daath's foremost debt to Fear Factory, and it's the industrial metal titans' trademarked harnessing of extreme metal savagery to technology assisted discipline that fuels the magical dichotomy embodied by mechanized onslaughts like Placenta, Filter (which also boasts softer techno touches reminiscent of Depeche Mode) and Infestation. It would be these last three songs mentioned that eventually pointed the creative path down which Daath should proceed in, transcending all of the disparate influences they so vaguely explored on Futility in order to conjure up a truly distinctive industrial/symphonic/Kabbalistic/death metal mutation for their sophomore album and Roadrunner debut, The Hinderers. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi

1		The One
2		Placenta
3		Filter
4		Child Says
5		Infestation
6		Concentrate Living
7		Blender for the Baby
8		Slow
9		Just for a Second
10		Crystasis

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