3 out of 5

Label: self-released

Produced by: Chris McCrimmon, Dilgert

Technically – as in the performances of the musicians – badass as hell, Widow’s Peak’s Claustrophobe is hit harder by something a lot of this kind of prog-y grindcore employs: very digital, clean production. In service of the complexity of the tunes, and not overloading the mix with the growly vocals, we often get a fairly “flat” sound: the speed-drumming and scale-shredding riffage all glisten, with nicely rounded edges that contrast with the overall heft of the music and tone. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, likely stemming back to production limitations during the birth of grindcore, but this is generally how I hear it once we get to stuff made in the mid- / late 00s and beyond.

The reason this all affects Claustophobe is because… the band is pretty damn inventive. The intro and outro tracks have a cinematic bent that isn’t unusual for the sometimes pretentious nature of this kind of metal, but as you dig into the album proper, you’ll hear elements of straight up prog – especially on the two-part Heartworms – that mimic themes from these bookends, and show off a wider range of influence than just chugga-chugga-growl-growl. Furthermore, vocalist Travis Godin is a damned wizard, stretching the bounds of what one should be able to do with a one-note vocal rumble. But in both of these cases, WP is self-limiting: that blanket of production firstly limits these other sonic elements from really syncing with the grindcore stuff, and then more directly, the band doesn’t really segue into or out of that stuff either, just kinda dropping one shtick and going right into another. It’s a shame, because of these elements are often effected really well, just not meshed together properly (or in the case of Godin’s singing, the band seems like a couple iterations away from figuring out how to better integrate his nuances).

Setting aside these non-transitions, and maybe focusing on the actual metal that makes up the vast majority of the album – yeah, it’s badass as hell. When the group hits on a groove of verse-chorus-verse, it is exactly that: a groove. There’s a nice balance of, like, pseudo-funk metal hanging around and the showmanship of technical metal such that neither side feels too indulgent.

Claustrophobe’s indie cover art and kind of discordant band name – like, I’m thinking Bruce Willis’ classic hairline, but the band logo is done up in goth font on the CD art – is representative of the conflicting nature of things that nibble at the edges of this disc. When they’re playing things straight, it’s absolutely awesome, but the fact that those edges are some of the more interesting things – even if flawed in execution – makes me hopeful for a more developed followup album.