It doesn’t take long for The Sanity Universal (Sun Terrace) to highlight that Seizures are neither your run of the mill act, nor are they here to make your life easy. Right from the start things aren’t all that they seem, opening with the moody instrumental ‘Chanter’ which invokes thoughts of metal’s doomier spectrum, hinting at possible elements of black metal and even shades of prog before it then turns everything on its head.
Despite the very misleading opening statement, The Sanity Universal sits firmly with the likes of hardcore with the bewildering complexity of mathcore. Taking hardcore and punk’s sense of unbridled rage and raw brutality but with The Dillinger Escape Plan’s sense of controlled chaos and unpredictable structures; a formula which by its very nature is both challenging and stirring.
That being said this does have its drawbacks. Sonically the influences are very easy to pinpoint and the aping of the likes of Converge and the aforementioned Dillinger is nothing new. But the most taxing part of it is all is how overdrawn it is, at approximately an hour in length and after a while this becomes more an exercise of your patience than an essential purchase.
In short doses this album shows a band with a chops and more than a dash of danger, but the fact that The Sanity Universal feels like it is never ending is major problem.
5.0/10
CHRIS TIPPELL