Ottawa's Antlion manage to shake prog-tech-death up enough to keep this debut album enjoyable, although it still has the usual tech-death trappings. But first, the good: love the atmosphere the band creates here, and I don't just mean it's atmosphere because they have a delay pedal and things get quiet and noodly on a regular basis; it goes beyond that and there is actually a feeling created (and “feeling” and “tech-death” really need to get to know each other better). The band's grooves are fun (see “Cycle Of Failure”), and the drumming is a pleasure to listen to. 

The bad? Well, yeah, there are grooves, there is noodling, and there is tech-death frantically chasing its own tail into oblivion. But, this sounds nothing like the tech-death you're imagining, the band sticking to more of a prog place, which brings and offers levity and, again, feeling, instead of mindless wizardry without payoff. Yeah, even when talking about the bad, I go back to the good, which means Antlion did something right here. Tunes like “A Seer's Elegy” are just straight-up fun to listen to, and usually five cuts deep into a tech-death album in 2015 we're all just awkwardly pretending to be happy. This album is a small victory, and although there are points where all the parts aren't quite adding up, it's a great first step into the maddening, and wonderful, world of technical death metal.