Rings of Saturn - Lugal Ki En (2014)
Y'all ever think about "man, a game like "Paperboy" or whatever wouldn't sell today. there's not enough to do it in to warrant a purchase" but then realize that video games aren't much different than they were in 1985? I was playing "Gears of War: Judgment" (what's with the fuckin' PS2 graphics?) earlier and I didn't even fully finish the first chapter before coming to the conclusion of "this is all I'm going to do the entire game, just hiding behind chest-high walls and shooting people" and I was bored, mostly because the enemies in that game seem to have less health than previous games (thank God) but still take like a million fucking bullets to put down, so the point of the matter is that "Spec-Ops: The Line" is a vastly superior game in pretty much all regards. I bring this up (well, not the praise for "Spec-Ops: The Line", it's just a great game) because I see something similar with Rings of Saturn: Their 2010 debut "Embryonic Anomaly" was impressive to listen to but kinda boring, and then nearly five years later, "Lugal Ki En" (surprisingly not the name of a "Mortal Kombat" character) is still pretty much the same, despite a few interesting bits in the music, like the beginning riff to "Lalassu Xul". The guitars still sound like midi notes, the drums still sound programmed, and the vocalist still sounds like a monster, but ultimately there's not a lot there for me, and in the case of their cover of Suicide Silence's "No Pity for a Coward" (done to honor the late Mitch Lucker) I'd rather just listen to the original, and it makes me wonder just how much further they can push this whole "we're brutal but also TECHNICAL AS FUCK ALIEN METAL BRAH" gimmick until their fans get tired of being musically winded. Fuck.
6/10
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