If you’re anything like me you need a ton of variation in your chug riffs to keep a chug riff kinda day going. The greatest chuggers these days are usually found in the odd brutal/slam death chugging scene whose talents typically boil down to Dying Fetus worship or generationally removed Cannibal Corpse-isms, that is if they’re not tech-death or deathcore. Chuggle… er, Strangle Wire are an Irish death metal band that use chugs in a carefully brutal way, not too far from the Fleshmould‘s semi-technical groove-metallic chug wizardry. ‘The Dark Triad’ will live and die on your playlist depending on how deadly serious you are about groovin’ chug blasts. In fact these guys specialize in some of the finer groovin’ chugs I’ve heard in a while, making ‘The Dark Triad’ more notable than I’d expected.

The riffs here are only occasionally as clever as their idols or contemporaries. They aren’t writing the sing-along-songs of classic Deicide nor are they as creative with the pit-thirsty thug chugs as albums like ‘Wrong One To Fuck With’ but their brutal death metal moments still make a good show of it. If I had to make a comparison I’d say either Torture Killer or Six Feet Under‘s ‘Undead’ / ‘Unborn’ era though I think the Fleshmould nod holds up better. The best riffs on this EP happen on “The Narcissist” as the chugging begins to resemble “Gallery of Suicide” era Cannibal Corpse and “The Failure Exhibit” with it’s heavy mid-pace that ends up far more effective and brutal than their blasted-ass songs. “Through A Black Lens” resembles post-Hoffman brothers Deicide in the best way possible also. I’d say this is a worthwhile listen of you’re a big fan of any of the groups I’ve mentioned. Doubt it’ll blow your mind beyond a few very cool riffs but it’s still well worth a spin.

Suffocated chugging mass. 3.0/5.0

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