Metal Injection

By Ben Apatoff

On 2008's The Common Man Collapse, Chicago's VEIL OF MAYA brandished a cerebral form of deathcore that had no regard for metal's speed or complexity wars. Two years later, they're back with shorter songs, a stronger emphasis on proficiency and MICHAEL KEENE of THE FACELESS at helm. Their third album, [id] is a riveting slice of American death metal that Sumerian is releasing with four different album color schemes. You'd be crazy to pick up all four, but if you need to buy four copies of one record this year, [id] would be a solid choice.

Veil of Maya are a musician's band for people who don't like musician's bands. There's not a moment of overplaying, no superfluous arrangements and no songs stretched beyond a reasonable length for the sake of having bloggers call them "epic." Instead we get some of the best metal songs of the year. "Unbreakable" writhes with killer riffs from guitarist MARC OKUBO, who paces himself like a long-lost DUPLANTIER brother with ADD. Songs like "The Higler" and Mowgli" testify that [id] has the best deathcore released since the last RED CHORD record, while "Resistance" and "The Higler" hint at progressive ambitions (or at least Keene's creative input.) But even the brief instrumental interludes sound vital here–there's not a bad song on [id], and the best ones will win VoM a much bigger audience with this album.

Rating: 4 CYNIC Song Titles out of 5