REVIEW: Psycho-Frame – Remote God Seeker [EP/2023]
Artist: Psycho-Frame
Album: Remote God Seeker – EP
I wasn’t sure how to start this article. On one hand, it would be no difficult task to jump right to painting a gory, violent and intense picture of what Psycho-Frame—and their truly traditional style of deathcore—is all about. You know—something like crossing a murder scene with a jigsaw puzzle; an “assemble by numbers” model, but with limbs, organs and flesh from countless bodies spanning all four corners of a large room.
On the other hand, it would also be appropriate to take the listener on a breakneck tour through the rollercoaster the word “deathcore” has been on through the last decade; its lows, its highs, what it is and, maybe more importantly, what it isn’t.
While both are appropriate, neither one in tandem really does Remote God Seeker—the debut EP by deathcore collective Psycho-Frame—justice. In honesty, I don’t know if words written on a page or on a screen really can do it justice, but I’m here to try. Briefly, Remote God Seeker is a schizoid tour through a manic, violent, potentially meth-addled outburst that distills the truest essence of mid-to-late 2000s deathcore and, ripping it from its rightful place in our timeline, smacks it right into the middle of 2023. The breakdowns are absurd. The percussion is flesh-rending. The guitars and bass walk the thinnest tightrope imaginable between technical, groovy, sludgy and girthy. The vocals opt out of a hyper technical dick-measuring contest and opt in to something that sounds like what your worst nightmares look like. It is not only one of the purest examples of deathcore in recent memory, but it is also the finest EP released in recent memory—something I’ll mince absolutely no words about.
As deathcore has grown and changed since its initial rise to prominence, it’s given off a lot of styles and sub-genres—which isn’t necessarily bad, though it can be a little confusing. Is the latest glitchy, technical, hyperproduced, chug-abundant project with a rabid badger for a vocalist deathcore, or is it some amalgamation of -core subtypes in an (occasionally bastardized) attempt to be deathcore (or deathcore adjacent)? That isn’t a question you have to ask yourself at any point during Remote God Seeker, period. From the very onset of “Internal Death Trance,” what you see (hear?) is absolutely what you get. Dave Mustrange’s blistering percussion oscillates between punchy, quick blast beats and lightning-like fills that segue into churning, primal breakdowns. “New Jack Eradication” is an excellent example of Mustrange’s skill, but truly any moment at any point on the EP won’t leave you in want when it comes to drumming that can best be described as bonkers. Mustrange isn’t alone—as guitarists Jordan Crain and Hunter Young are right there with him. “24 Hours Left,” the band’s breakout single is a murderous haze of frantic fretwork and abyssal dissonance, while “Dragging Nazarene” and its counterpart “Raining Glass” see a careful and deliberate incorporation of neuroinvasive riffing that fuels the frantic, primal bloodlust sparked by Mustrange’s colossal percussion. These elements are brought together by Jonathan Mackey’s prowess behind the bass, adding heft and impact to every breakdown while bringing a thick, grisly firmament to Crain and Young’s often dizzying fretwork. This instrumental onslaught is so much of what gives Psycho-Frame their jarring, spastic and…well, psychotic fervor. There is not a moment of rest or reprieve to be found throughout the record’s moderate runtime—instead its entire duration sees Young and the remainder of the outfit running on all cylinders and then some to hammer an ironclad definition of deathcore through the thickest portions of the listener’s skull.
…And then there are the vocalists to consider. Yes, that’s a plural. When’s the last time you’ve been truly impressed by a heavy outfit with two vocalists? Early Despised Icon? The Irish Front? Now you can add Psycho-Frame to the mix. Frontmen Mike Sugars and Jonathan Whittle are, arguably, the genre’s new peanut butter and jelly, so to speak. Every song sees them work so fluidly together that it wouldn’t be a reach to mistake them for one vocalist—if it weren’t for the incredible respective strengths and styles they bring to Remote God Seeker. It’s hard to pick a stand-out track—on one hand, “Internal Death Trance” makes a monstrous first impression, but the catchy vocal patterns in “Dragging Nazarene” or “New Jack Eradication” keep the listener coming back time and time again. Ultimately, their sprawling vocal abilities and outstanding ability to keep pace with Psycho-Frame’s immolating instrumental onslaught means that you, as the listener, don’t need a stand-out track—because you’re going to have the EP on repeat anyways.
Something I’ve been personally working on over the last several years is a reduction in hyperbolizing records. It’s easy to hear something for the first time, click with it and call it “album of the year” for a week until the next Friday rolls around and you…well, forgot you even had streamed or bought the aforementioned record in the first place.
Psycho-Frame is not that band. Remote God Seeker is not that record.
This EP is truly something special, enough to be in near-constant rotation for weeks, certainly more than enough to justify ordering more merch than is financially or logistically appropriate. If you’re a deathcore “old-head,” and you want something that will make you feel the same way you felt at 15 listening to some obscure Russian or Australian deathcore from a 5-gig torrent file hosted on The Pirate Bay in your parents’ basement, still sweaty and half-deaf from the show you just got home from—this is for you. If you’re new to the genre and want a non-negotiable, unmistakable example of the genre at its prime—this is also for you. Remote God Seeker is the 2020’s spiritual successor to the likes of Thy Art is Murder’s Infinite Death, The Red Shore’s Lost Verses or Jerome’s 2006 demo. It is exactly the gimmick-free, ninja-moves-in-the-pit, gold-foil-impact-font-on-a-black-tee experience the genre needed to feel whole again, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t 2023’s best EP thus far in the process.
10/10
For Fans Of: 2000s deathcore, did you even read the review?
Connor Welsh