When it comes to death metal, there are three options. You can play it straight and tread the mainstream festival stages like Hypocrisy, you can go back to the primitive and rot under the floorboards like Autopsy, or in the case of Florida natives Gigan you can blast off into a cold interstellar vortex at warp speed and leave much of the competition charred to ashes in your wake, as the they do on third album Multi-Dimensional Fractal Sorcery & Super Science (Willowtip).
Their name, taken from Kaiju, the Japanese giant monster best known for battling Godzilla is appropriate, for Gigan sound ready to take on just about anyone with their blistering tech-death assault on the senses. Armed with more ideas than their rivals in the blasting stakes and an appreciation for mood and atmosphere that is often lacking when speed takes precedent, this is a record that should gain the band many admirers. The scope of their vision is demonstrated in the opening track ‘Beneath the Sea of Tranquillity’, a nine minute endurance test of fire-bomb riffing, scattergun percussion and furious vocal bellows that call to mind Ulcerate wrestling with Ufomammut in the midst of an exploding star.
The remaining tracks are shorter in length but equal in intensity, such as the punishing attack of ‘Influence through Ritualistic Perception’ and the whirlwind chaos of ‘Mother of Toads’, the latter of which features plenty of innovative drumming alongside the more standard blasts and fills. Comparisons to the likes of Origin are inevitable but Gigan have enough of their own identity to pull in those who couldn’t get enough of the latest Gorguts record; those who like their death metal to be uncertain and dangerous, the way it should be. They’ve certainly achieved that here.
8/10
James Conway