Review by Allan on February 1, 2003.

When it comes to death metal, I’ve come to expect nothing but goodness from Canada. Cryptopsy, Martyr, Neuraxis – you name it. Soon there should be another young band to add to that list: Despised Icon. Their debut album “Consumed By Your Poison” shows that there is much potential in this death/grind six-piece.

One of the first things that you will notice about Despised Icon is that they are a tight group. They can stop and start on a dime fairly well, and within the songs they’ve done a nice job of making things come together. The production does a fantastic job of showing their precision. Every instrument rings out clearly. Never will you feel that the sound is too muddied or claustrophobic.

Despised Icon vocalists Marie Landry and Steve Marois deserve a mention. Generally Marois dominates the music with his guttural vocals, but Landry makes her presence well known when she shows up with into the picture, most noticeably when using her higher-pitched scream. The dual vocal approach works in favor of Despised Icon, giving the songs another spin and not ever running into the problem of overdoing the vocals.

The music is hits you hard and it doesn’t let up. The songs on “Consumed By Your Poison” are all heavy, but the great thing is that Despised Icon does an admirable job of switching up the tempos. They tend to splice in a slower section in their songs for at least a few seconds. Despised Icon also makes sure to vary the tempo up between each section of the music so that one song doesn’t move along without giving the listener a sense of destination.

The only thing holding back Despised Icon is that the song writing and ideas can be weak sometimes. Many of the ideas in the songs should have been more developed, and many of them are just a tad clichéd. When it comes to song writing, they often switch gears a few too many times, leaving the songs with a slight lack of coherency or flow, among a few other obvious things.

Bottom Line: Despite the fact that Despised Icon has its fair share of weaknesses, “Consumed By Your Poison” is only their debut album. By the next album I’d expect the band to be far more powerful if they work at it, hopefully maturing in every aspect. Nonetheless, “Consumed By Your Poison” is an album that is worth looking into.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Originality: 6
Musicianship: 8
Atmosphere: 7
Production: 8.5
Overall: 6.5

Rating: 7.2 out of 10