SINGLE REVIEW: Before the Harvest – “Filthy Breed” [2014]

Artist: Before the Harvest

Single: “Filthy Breed”

Humanity is a scourge on planet earth—a thick, visceral film of flesh and blood that pollutes every surface it touches. Where mankind tread, death and destruction flourishes. Where they make camp and build cities, nature is forced to give way and decay under man’s almighty, smothering presence. Far from passive, it weights down on the world like a leaden yoke, forcing the planet to a subservient existence—therefore, it is truly only fitting that the latest single from the Australian onslaught Before the Harvest be named after our species decrepit likeness. “Filthy Breed” is a lacerating lesson in aggression that spreads throughout the listener’s head like a plague and incinerates positivity and beauty on contact, leaving nothing but barren, desiccated wasteland where the listener’s once bountiful sanity used to lay.

“Filthy Breed” begins as a whirlwind and doesn’t let up once throughout its duration. Kicking off with intense, technically marvelous percussion that functions as a scaffold for searing, furious fretwork and mach-speed tremolo-picking, the track is one that will have no problem busting through the listener’s head like an ice pick. Before the Harvest function as a well oiled, technically-savvy machine the likes of which would make Nexilva blush—as aggressive, beautiful electronics and programming soon jump into the track to add an immersive element to the band’s constantly-churning dynamic. Walking the tightrope between Oceano’s lurid, disgusting heaviness and Born of Osiris’ penchant for atmospheric, engaging electronic symphonies, Before the Harvest continue forward, punishing the listener with blazing percussion and vocals that effortlessly maintain perfect pitch and tone without sacrificing speed or fluidity—that is, until the track’s climactic breakdown hits. Nearing the dead center of the track, “Filthy Breed” truly lives up to it’s name, inflicting a raunchy, sludgy and destructive breakdown so eviscerating that the track never truly reaches its previous speed or technicality again. Rather, Before the Harvest continue to devolve, regressing to even heavier and heavier, practically leaden chugs and pulverizing vocals to close the track—and the listener’s coffin as well.