Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Isolation is perhaps the cruellest sentence to impose upon anybody, it smacks of abandonment, of segregation from your fellow man and can foster resentment and overwhelming feelings of revenge; rather than the perfect seclusion we all dream of having for perhaps just a week in our lives, where to do our own thing, be at one with the world, is almost to be seen as the ideal.

The twin dichotomy, the seamless join between the two states of mind is captured with textbook authority by American Deathcore Metal Band The Browning and one that whilst many might find hard to get their head around, does conjure up some marvellous imagery, unspoiled landscapes of disillusionment, of flawed systems of control and terrorising metaphors struck deep into the hearts of the lyrics, it is the sense of an America hiding in the shadows and The Browning are brave enough to attention to it, whether by design or by contrast, this is a section of the country in which disillusionment is running faster than optimism can catch up with.

The album crashes into the universe with the same sense of the loud and impressive as the day when Vesuvius started its worrying descent into immortality, the big band awaits and whilst it doesn’t quite cover all before it, the dynamic is there, it smoulders and describes the issue that never wants to be brought into conversation; it is Vesuvius the day before the big bang and the total destruction that laid waste to the world and it is verging on the magnificent.

With tracks such as Pure Evil, Dragon, Fallout, the superb Phantom Dancer and Pathologic all offering a sense of occasion, of consequences disagreeing with Time, the row and grumble tantalising the air, The Browning have captured the moment that leads up to the severing of all we understand, the isolated moment which taken out of context is to be seen as solitary, somehow becomes the big picture, the lonely cell suddenly becomes the day in the park filled with company and common interest. It is the raining down of fire but protected by the best type of bunker, hope.

The anger is there, the fire stands testament to the fury tumbling down the hillside and in amongst it all Isolation stands proud.

Ian D. Hall