REVIEWS - "A Beautiful Sickness" CD (page 5)

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Tripalium Zine- by Roel Mores. March 2004

Although there is a mention of “project” in the band name, this is not a project of some well known face in the underground. Sure, Eric Forrest, one time Voivod vocalist, did the vocals for this CD, this is not his pet project. This is a new band from the pits of Virginia, USA.

From start to finish, nothing can be said about the songs off this album that is negative. There is a myriad of influences thrown here but it was done in a very proficient way. Most prominent is thrash with enough amount of death metal, then you have a dose of industrial as well, plus a slight of doom on the side. Add to that the use of keys to great a deeper atmosphere and the use of viola on 9mm Movie created a very brooding atmosphere that can be compared to the earlier materials of My Dying Bride.

There are also lots of odd time signatures and tempo changes to keep the songs much more interesting. Twisted in many aspect but one listen is enough for you to become a believer of this band. Check this out or forever envy those who had the chance to listen to this great album.

The band recently signed with Karmageddon Media (former Hammerheart Records).

Mike's I-net Metal Magazine - (5.5 out of 6) by Michael Druml. April 2004

Project: Failing Flesh is the musical experiment of three mad American scientists. One of them, vocalist Eric Forest should be known to all of you who know a band called Voivod ( not long ago the rather unknown Jason Newsted joined them), as he was their vocalist. The music is quite melodic, but on the other hand also very aggressive. "Scene Of The Crime" reminds me extremely of Fear Factory, due to the aggressive, powerful guitars. But also the other songs are great, some of them remind me on melodic Swedish Death Metal, but with a touch of Fear Factory. To my mind a very interesting combination. P:FF are not afraid of experimenting with industrial sounds and it fits quite well into their songs. The ten assaults on this album hit the listener like train, when power is concerned, I really like this stuff. The last track on this CD is a cover version of Warhead, originally by the mighty Venom. P:FF interpreted it their way and I have to say it sounds a lot like Death Metal in their version. Reminds a bit on Six Feet Under. "A Beautiful Sickness" will soon be released through Karmageddon Media (ex - Hammerheart Records), so it should be no problem to get it also in Europe.

DarkScene - by Werner. April 2004

Nach God Forbid schon wieder ein verlockend akustischer Coktail, der da auf meinem Schreibtisch geflattert ist. Eric Forrest, ehemaliges Voivod bzw. heutiges E-Force Brüllorgan weiß auch auf dieser Eigenproduktion zu beeindrucken bzw. die Gründer und Multiinstrumentalisten Kevin 131 und Tim Gutierrez bieten ein massiv düsteres, wie auch frostiges Ambiente. Tonnenschwere Machine Head / Fear Factory riffs paaren sich mit kranken Strapping Young Lad Knüppelexzessen, lassen sich von einer unsagbar erdrückenden E- Soundeisdecke ala Samael ummanteln und töten jeden noch so resistenten Keim. Sogar die Venom Coverversion “Warhead“ scheint unter Nichtverwendung der ansonsten öfter zu hörenden Electronicimplantate vor Kälte zu erstarren, das hat Stil. Wenn dieser leblose Punsch dann noch mit seinem steril-druckvollen Sound einher rauscht, vergißt Du beinahe, daß es sich bei “A Beautiful Sickness“ um Selbsttöpferei handelt. Auch die Aufmachung kommt für Promoverhältnisse professionell rüber und reflektiert den musikalischen Inhalt kongenial.

Explicitly Intense - by Sarjoo Devani. Issue #14. April 2004

Eric Forrest, the former frontman/bassist for Voivod has returned to the fold with a new industrial band. Armed with a super charged drum machine, epic sounding synths, paranoid ridden vocals, and hellish guitar rhythms make Project: Failing Flesh a hit within the extreme metal circles. Imagine a killer mix of early  Voivod and Inner Thought, and you'll be blown away!!!!!

Underground Empire - by Walter Scheurer. April 2004

Lange Zeit war es ruhig um den ehemaligen VOIVOD-Sänger Eric Forrest. Doch nun kommt er innerhalb recht kurzer Zeit mit zwei Veröffentlichungen wieder in die Gänge. Wie unlängst berichtet, hat er mit E-FORCE eine eigene Band am Start, die in eher traditionelleren Thrash Metal-Gefilden beheimatet ist. PROJECT: FAILING FLESH sind dagegen wesentlich abgefahrener. Klar, die Basis ist immer noch heftigster Extrem-Metal, dessen Basis der Thrash ist. Das Trio verarbeitet aber ebenso Elemente aus dem Grindcore und dem Death Metal. Speziell CARCASS müssen als Einfluß auf die Texte und visuelle Umsetzung erwähnt werden. Durch die immer wieder zu hörenden Streicher verleihen die Herrschaften ihrem Sound eine noch düsterere Note. Durch diese klassische Instrumentierung und dem daraus resultierenden Klang kommen mir als Vergleich diesbezüglich immer wieder HOLLENTHON in den Sinn.
Noch abgefahrener als die Musik der Truppe ist allerdings noch die Homepage der Herren. Oder ist euch schon einmal eine Rubrik zum Thema "Medical Dramas" auf der Website einer Band untergekommen?

Mario's Metal Mania -  by Mario van Dooren. April 2004

This band was founded by Kevin 131 & Tim Gutierrez. It all mutated into existence when singer Eric Forrest (E-Force, ex-Voivod) was added to this sonic experiment. This self-produced CD contains 10 aggressive, brutal songs with some industrial influences. Last song on the album is the Venom classic: Warhead! The music is not comparable with any Voivod stuff but it's GREAT too! If you're looking for something original than you should buy this album! Voivod is & always has been my fave band but when you compare Eric Forrest nowadays with Snake.......Eric wins!! I heard some rumors that P:FF signed with Karmageddon Records lately.

Fave songs: Entrance Wound, Dementia Pugilistica

Scissors - (7+ out of 10) by Boris Todorovic. April 2004

Project: Failing Flesh was (judging by the title itself) just a project of Tim Gutierrezo and Kevin 131 for some time, but things started getting interesting when Eric Forrest (E-Force, Voivod) joined in. During 2003 they have recorded debut album entitled "A Beautiful Sickness" in Assembly Line Laboratories Studio. These guys were picked up by Karmageddon Media and this album will be officially out in the end of may, 2004. Here we have basically melodic death metal in the vein of Soilwork, but far from the thing that they are just a copycat. Project: Failing Flesh have created unique music, which separates them from the rest of the bands labeled as melo death. The songs are... umm... crazy?! Logic doesn't have a meaning here. "A Beautiful Sickness", "Planet Dead", "Scene Of The Crime" are some of the songs that are really unpredictable. Unusual rhythms, crazy riffs, melodies... only the vocals are 'old-fashioned'. Going even further, "Planet Dead" is kind of mix between Brainstorm and Neurosis (imagine that stuff dudes!); "9MM Movie" features good leads on violin, but the ending of the song for everyone, but for usual metalheads. You really need to be into morbid and crazy metal stuff to like "A Beautiful Sickness". Not saying that this is a bad album - far from that - the thing is just that it is not for everyone. Someone will like it, someone will hate it... I personally think that this is more than interesting stuff (these guys have a hidden talent!), but they should work more harder, because some of the songs sound unfinished and production is not the best one. There is a place for improvement, so I'll just wait a next album and hope Project: Failing Flesh will keep doing the good stuff.

Powermetal.de - by Henri Kramer. February 2004

Metal muss man laut hören. Die alte Binsenweisheit ist bei Project: Failing Flesh geradezu essenziell. Denn bei lautem Hören funktioniert "A Beautiful Sickness" genial, die zum Teil üblen akustischen Schnitzer fallen unter den zugedröhnten Tisch.

Beim ersten Hören schießen zwei Namen ins Hirn: Fear Factory und neuere Kreator. Dieses verheißungsvolle Gespann wird noch mit Jazz versetzt (O-Ton meines Mitbewohner "Was hörst du denn jetzt?") und ergibt eine Abwechslung, die über das Niveau der alltäglichen Metal-Musik deutlich hinausschießt. Doch wo soviel kreatives Licht ist, gibt es bei Project: Failing Flesh auch Schatten. Warum diese Einbrüche? Wollen die den Hörer ärgern? Besonders der plötzliche Abbruch im Titellied - ist da kein Ende mehr eingefallen, keine Lust mehr zu spielen? Der Sinn solcher Aktionen bleibt im Dunkeln. Zumal solche kreativen Fehlgriffe durch göttliche Passagen wie in 'Entrance Wound' noch schärfer hervortreten. In dem Song duelliert sich zum Beispiel aggressiv-kalter Industrial Metal mit einer beschwingten Klavier-Melodie in einem mitreißenden Thema, das sich durch den Song wie ein Strahl musikalischer Erleuchtung zieht. Beim Bangen im Zimmer ist gleich mal ein Glas umgefallen...

Endgeil ist auch die Stimme von Eric Forrest, Ex-Sänger von Voivod. Zum musikalischen Wahnsinn der Kapelle passt sein wandlungsfähiger Gesang perfekt. Mal verzerrt, mal im Death-Style, mal klar - Grenzen gibt es nicht. Doch die Gegensätze auf dem Debüt von Project: Failing Flesh hebt das Organ von Forrest auch nicht auf. Entrückten Momenten wie dem Anfang von 'Planet Dead' stehen dann eben solche abrupten Enden wie in 'A Beautiful Sickness' gegenüber. Zudem ist die Nähe zu Fear Factory nicht zu übersehen, wenn auch das musikalische Universum von Project: Failing Flesh noch viel mehr Facetten kennt. Dieser Mischmasch aus verschiedenen Stilen, hier Thrash, da Industrial und dort Death Metal, dieses Verquirlen von Musik lässt Project: Failing Flesh letztendlich doch zu einer ganz besonderen Band werden. Wenn herrlich disharmonische Streicherpassagen wie auf 'Dementia Pugilistica' wohltuend die Hirnsynapsen durchschütteln, weil die fett produzierten Gitarren im Hintergrund vor lauter Druck fast explodieren, dann bleibt für "A Beautiful Sickness" trotz kleinerer Schwächen nur ein Urteil: Bangen - spätestens bei der Notarzt-Version von Venom's 'Warhead'.

Nachtrag des Lektors: Von der Vorabversion der Scheibe gibt es nicht mehr viele über Mailorder zu bestellen; eine offizielle Veröffentlichung über das Label wird es dann im Mai geben. (Info der Homepage)

Anspieltipps: Planet Dead, Dementia Pugilistica, Highwire Act

Brutallica - (7.5 out of 10) by Vanja Marinova. Issue 9 Spring/Summer 2004

Definitely these guys will turn a lot of heads very soon if they keep on developing the same way! "A Beautiful Sickness" (could the CD title have anything to do with "A Beautiful Mind"?) turned out to be a very promising debut... from the very beginning you end up with a throat seized by the thick obscurity of Thrash-Death-Core oriented riffs with uncanny synth parts inserted here and there... In addition, the CD includes a great cover of Venom's, "Warhead"!

Unbelievably Retarded - by Cameron Archer. January 2004

First off, this band has already been signed to Karmageddon Media (which you all knew as Hammerheart Records at one time), so I'm not going there.  They've been signed, their plan worked, they're getting a push.  Fucked, sucked and put to bed.
 
Project: Failing Flesh is a death/thrash/industrial band from Virginia with a fair bit of history to the band's name.  Eric Forrest used to be in Voivod for a time, and that's apparent upon listening to A Beautiful Sickness as there are a lot of different elements (some metal, some non-metal) thrown into this album.  Personally, I'm amazed the band could pull an album like A Beautiful Sickness off as well as it could, because the album sounds modern and yet aggressive at the same time.  There's a real thrash rooting to the Project: Failing Flesh sound, but the band manages to throw in jazz and other musical elements without ruining its sound or sounding too distanced from the material.  The keyboards also seem to add an important element to A Beautiful Sickness, which is rare as keyboards usually detract from extreme metal as a whole.  Really, there isn't a weak link in the package in my mind.  The musicianship is tight, and Eric Forrest's vocals are great and screamy without being forced.  Even the concept the band hangs its hat on, something about comas and the money from selling cadavers from what I glanced of the "liner notes" (I'm sorry, I can't follow all that small text, it being in Franklin Gothic and all) is relevant without being forced.  Mind you, the album isn't perfect (that whole distancing thing, I'm not fond of it) but A Beautiful Sickness is a more than credible effort and I love P:FF for it.
 
Aside: the guy from Aversionline gave Project: Failing Flesh's album a 5/10 for niggling things like the album cover and the feeling that the music was "unfocused."  I love when overrated reviewers have their shithole caked up.  It brings a warm feeling to my peepee.  Wait, that's urine.  Nevermind.

AEA Zine - Issue 9. July 2004

Reading the liners of A Beautiful Sickness prompted me to remember a movie released in 1978 called Coma, about a hospital where patients were being killed and their bodies used for some mysterious purpose. These days science fiction movies exist with special effects making this look badly dated and cheaply made in comparison, but listening to this album still led me to imagine whether an indie company decided to take up the task of remaking the movie with this album as the soundtrack. The Virginia-based power trio Project: Failing Flesh draws on a schizophrenic array in influences, resulting in a death metal album with earmarks of Voivod’s Dimension Hatross, Snapcase’s End Transmission and Sigh’s Hail Horror Hail, if you believe it possible to conjoin different elements from these albums for a collection of nine original songs and a Venom cover. The unpredictability the band pursued writing this album is what kept me hearkening with more interest as I progressed from song to song. Each composition had a dissimilar exhibition of effects to compound the hypnotic industrial quality they bestow on death metal, with repetitive post-thrash rhythms, electronic effects and piano and string interludes. Changing their style to blast from industrial on the title song while adding keyboards was a memorable moment, as was their addition of Venom’s “Warhead” as their album closer which seemed to fit the rest of the album as they recorded it.

Walls of Fire - (4.5 out of 5) by Nicki Vassilev. August 2004

Some of you might have already heard of this Canadian trio. Project: Failing Flesh. What makes you think I should know them, you’ll ask? Well, how about the fact that the debut album we’re talking about here, “A Beautiful Sickness”, was ready about a year ago, although its European invasion shall happen in a month’s time thanks to Karmageddon Media? Or that the project is fronted by no other than former VoiVod and current E-Force vocal beast Eric Forrest? Well? If that’s still not enough, you’d better listen. Listen to the music composed and performed entirely by Eric’s colleagues in P:FF – the wizards of sound Kevin 131 and Tim Gutierrez, both responsible for all kind of guitars, samples, drum programming, etc., as well as for the production of the record (at Assembly Line Studios in the USA). The result of the trio’s combined efforts are 40 minutes of a violent, mid-tempo to fast blasting breed of thrash, death metal and industrial. Try imagining a polished symbiosis between Pestilence vs. VoiVod vs. Meshuggah vs. Fear Factory... and more. Yes, more, due to the psychotic keyboard and piano intrusions done by the guest musician Loston Harris (like in the introduction to the piece "Planet Dead", for example), the scary viola passage performed by Clayton Ingerson of Dysrhythmia (have a listen to the staccato-masterpiece "9mm Movie"), the straightforward cover version of Venom’s classic tune “Warhead”... To put it short, what we get while diving into the depths of "A Beautiful Sickness" is Canadian extreme metal avantgardism at its best!

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