Random is their first album, even though their Grand Hare Order demo was released 4 years ago already. So yes, 4 years is a lot but when you pay attention to the complexity of the songs, you understand why the composition and rehearsal processes may be so painful and time demanding to obtain a satisfying final result. To me it doesn’t sound so much French. Which is something good I guess since French bands have always had a hard time trying to export their music. And regardless, the music is pretty well done and efficient. It’s still lacking some consistency at some points (inappropriate blast beat part of Random) but still it’s much better and more in your face than what it used to be with their first demo in my opinion. Even though the influences are clear, Random doesn’t sound like a copycat. Except maybe this break on "Thailand" (see "Mummified In Barbed Wire" from the Cannibal Corpse Vile album) and the guitar interlude of "I’ll Quit Smoking Tomorrow" that reminds one of Trey Azagthoth’s experimentations on Morbid Angel's latest releases: Formulas Fatal to the Flesh, Gateways To Annihilation mainly and Heretic as well. Structurally speaking, there’s something that I don’t like so much though: when they calm their music down, Hectic Patterns seem to think that’s the right moment for a guitar solo but that sounds always the same and it does not really match the rythmic basis.

Instrument by instrument, first the drumming is amazing: always very pure even when unbelievably fast. To go on with rythmic section, the bass guitar player is really skilled also and brings his own contribution to the music. His playing reminds me strongly of Steve DiGiorgio and its typical clean sound. To me the bass guitar player is at the origin of the old school touch of Hectic Patterns, and that makes a real difference with the other technical death metal bands. Guitar parts are most of the time more than interesting as well. But since they really represent the structure of the songs, there’s no place for mistakes. Eventually, apart from a few riffs (the second riff of "Macabre Punishment" has probably been played by every single death metal band...), the two guitar players managed to do a great job on this album. And last but not least, I just love the growlings of James: powerful and guttural vocals at their best! Just nothing to add... So, Random is basically a quite very impressive debut album that you can appreciate very quickly if you enjoy brutality and complexity. To sum everything up, the main success of Hectic Patterns deals with the ideal mixture of catchy and complex elements to end up with a very homogeneous and already mature work.

written by Hubert Chapuis

Playing time: 47:10