I spent quite a long time trying to come up with a deep opinion on the new album, Matriarch, by American Progressive Deathcore outfit Veil of Maya, but after repeated listens and chances I come back to one word to describe just over 30 minutes of music that I can barely remember.
Apathy.
A previous Veil of Maya album, The Modern Man’s Collapse, still makes it into my listening rotation semi-regularly. The lukewarm reaction that Matriarch elicits is not based on a previous, under-running, bias against the Sumerian Records veterans, but that, in 2015, Veil of Maya seem to have nothing more to offer. It is not to say that Veil of Maya were necessarily the architects of Progressive Deathcore, but at one point at least, their sound was new and exciting; the riffs were not just the same riffs heard from other bands… even if their songs had tablature akin to a spilt tin of spaghetti hoops at times. Matriarch, conversely, relies heavily on the trappings of its genre and successfully takes the Progress out of Progressive Deathcore.
Veil of Maya have not lost their technical ability or their penchant for writing decent riffs, at least not completely, but they have fallen into a pit of predictability. It’s conflicting to hear an enjoyable riff, only to have it followed by 3 minutes of everything you’ve come to expect; zoning out completely until the next vaguely interesting bit. This album ticks every box so that it can satisfy the modern definition of its genre and little more. The result is a record listened to with clipboard in hand; the listener just waiting to be able to check the boxes marked “overly syncopated Start-Stop riff written in an obtuse time signature” and “random breakdown that completely ruins the flow.” It is likely you have heard this album before, just with a different names and titles attached and (only slightly) different album art. It’s been released many times before (even by Veil of Maya themselves.)
The only thing that has changed this time around are the vocals. New vocalist Lukas Magyar took over from Brandon Butler in 2014, introducing, controversially, clean vocals to Veil of Maya for the first time. These clean vocals are another nail in the coffin for Matriarch, but not because clean vocals are inherently bad or *insert homophobic slur here* or that Magyar’s performance is anything to complain about. The issue is that sections where Lukas Magyar’s clean vocals come to the forefront underline the complete lack of creativity to be found on this album. This is mainly because these sections all sound lifted from Periphery’s Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal release from 2012. On a first listen I had to double check to make sure that Spencer “Sponce” Sotelo wasn’t a featured artist on this album. It’s a definite bad move for your album to remind me of another, better, album that I could be listening to. Because if I can. I will. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
If the idea of another album that throws electronics, unsatisfying time signature changes and Morse code (probably delivering messages to undercover sleeper cells) disguised as chugging guitar riffs at you is somehow appealing, then Matriarch is for you. For everyone else, there is a vaguely enjoyable album here, but it’s one you’ve probably already heard. One that follows a very specific formula that, to be fair to Veil of Maya, the band follows very well. It’s just a shame that the formula is no longer just written on the blackboard at the front of the Progcore classroom, but etched there like some kind of commandment of the genre; giving those who look on it with the knowledge of tedious predictability.
2.5/5
