Deleted Symphony for the Beaten Down

Soilent Green | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 18, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Relapse
• ASIN: B000059PWM
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,399 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jesus Christ!!!!!!, August 20, 2004

By 

Andre Guerreiro "byo" (Brasil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deleted Symphony for the Beaten Down (Audio CD)

Oh, my god. What the hell was that I just listened to? This band is perfect and although I haven't heard Sewn Mouth Secrets and Pussysoul this is a groundbraking experience. It's not just noise after noise. It's quality metal at its best combining elements from grindcore, death metal, thrash, blues, rock'n roll and everything else that I might have forgotten. Not forgetting those slow riffs inspired clearly on Black Sabbath.

There should be more bands like Soilent Green on metal scene today. *sigh* Not to say that there aren't but please listen to this band and you'll realize they are unique and there's no band like it. I can't wait to put my hands on a copy as soon as I find it imported in Brazil, since the import tax is too expensive.

Do not dare to miss this band!!! Don't you ever!!! And I mean it!!! It's brutal and creative but as I see from this site, many people don't think these two things can be together. Well, if you're like me and really likes extreme metal/hardcore you know what I'll say... :D

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More brilliance from the one and only Soilent Green, October 11, 2003

By 

Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Deleted Symphony for the Beaten Down (Audio CD)

After getting "Sewn Mouth Secrets" a few months ago and proceeding to drool all over the interior of my car while listening to it, I wasn't sure any band could match such an original masterpiece. Well, there is one band that can do it, and that band is...Soilent Green. They're not quite my favorite metal band, but they're certainly one of the most powerful and unique. These guys can bust your head just as easily as they bust genres. Throwing concepts like melody and traditional song structure right out the window, Soilent Green rely on instead on a blistering fusion of grindcore and Southern sludge, using a nonstop succession of jarring tempo changes and complex rhythms to beat you into the ground.

"Sewn Mouth Secrets" and "Deleted Symphony" are easily two of the heaviest and most aggressive albums I own, but that's not what makes them such great listens. Rather, what makes Soilent Green great is that they have a seemingly limitless supply of talent. Louis Benjamin Falgoust II, in addition to having a cool name, is easily one of the best metal vocalists on the face of this planet. Befitting music this crazy and unpredictable, he shifts so effortlessly between menacing growls and demonic shrieks that he sounds like two guys. The dynamics he manages to create with his voice alone are like nothing else. Even if the rest of the band were inept, it would be worth the money just to hear Ben's performance.

Fortunately, the rest of the band is very far from inept. In fact, they back Ben up with with such a precise and varied attack that they manage to sound like a Southern equivalent of Meshuggah or the Dillinger Escape Plan (and those who have read my reviews should know that I do not make such a comparison lightly).

Special mention should go to drummer Tommy Buckley, who is easily one of the most skilled and creative in the genre (and the production allows you to hear what he's doing too!). He lays down plenty of sick blastbeats, but he doesn't stop there. His performance is littered with amazingly fluid fills and frantic double bass work that brings to mind the equally brilliant Brann Dailor (Mastodon, ex-Today Is The Day). You've got to respect a guy who COULD just blast away all album and sound good doing it, but instead decides to add reams of complexity and creativity just for good measure. Tommy is yet another reason I love the drums, and think they can go a long way toward making or breaking an album.

Then, of course, there's the guitar duo of Brian Patton and then-newcomer Ben Stout, which is nothing short of brilliant. You really can't ever tell what these guys are going to do next, as they lay down some of the heaviest riffs and most instricate structures in history. They can pummell you over the head with waves of crushing sludge, and then stop on a dime and blast you through a wall with some blazing-fast grindcore riffs. Scott Williams's bass is, well, there, although it's naturally pushed into the backround somewhat with all the insanity going on around it. I'm willing to bet he's great, though.

In the songwriting department, the band mostly keeps things short and sweet. These guys don't need to write long songs, simply because their compositional style is so tight and efficient. Destruction is the name of the game here, not extravagance, and accordingly Soilent Green manage to eliminate any note that isn't utterly necessary. The band does, however, stretch things out a bit with the stunning "Swallowhole," which takes everything that makes this band great and expands on it to create a chilling six-minute epic. Here's one fan hoping they decide to do more songs like this one on future albums.

Even with everything I've said above, you still have to hear this album yourself to truly comprehend what Soilent Green do. My words can't adequately convey how powerful and viscerally impacting "Deleted Symphony" and "Sewn Mouth Secrets" really are. I can guarantee with virtual certainty that these albums will screw up your mind, and given the band's obvious intentions that's a good thing. So scrounge up whatever extra cash you have lying around, put down that Nickelback CD, and grab some Soilent Green.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 9, But Almost A 10..., May 5, 2002

By 

Magizine Reviewer (Nowhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deleted Symphony for the Beaten Down (Audio CD)

As far as being unique and carving your own niche in the overpopulated and too-often stale world of underground metal goes, Soilent Green lead the pack, creating a sound that can bring to mind vague influences only. On this, their third full-length, New Orleans' scariest take the impossible prog-grind-blues found on their last album, Sewn Mouth Secrets and... well, basically repeat it. So in that sense, A Deleted Symphony is a minor let down, these songs sounding like they could have been written and recorded in the same session as the band's last opus. However, when the songs are of this caliber, one can't complain, as one more trip down this rocky, twisty and dangerous path results in what will easily be one of my top five albums of 2001. Each of the ten songs found here contain a seemingly infinite amount of riffs, tempos and time changes, the band hardly ever repeating the same part over (verse/chorus/verse: forget about it). The southern rock influence remains, mixing in modern grind and mathcore influences as well (Blackfoot meets The Dillinger Escape Plan?). Listening to this evokes the same dropped jaw, glossed over eyes and vertigo that comes with those long nights trying to decipher Spastic Ink, Yes or Melt-Banana songs: it's really a bit much for those looking for an easy listen. But, there's always AC/DC for your easy listens, so while Soilent Green may teeter a bit to the extreme grind sound for some listeners, they are still worth checking out for anyone into new, talented and unique metal. All the drummers out there using triggers that make their drums sound like computers should put this one on for a reminder of what drums sound like, as the crystal clear production highlights the amazing drumming nicely. A solitary point is taken off for slight redundancy only: this album without any previous reference points would be a glaring 10.