positive punk: PYREXIA

7.26.2019

PYREXIA

"system of the animal"
Year: 1997
Label: SE
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 8
Time: 24 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Death Metal

Life is all about second chances. Maybe it’s reconnecting with a lost love, maybe it’s trading in your career as a corporate accountant to finally give your photography hobby your full attention, or maybe it’s re-recording an album from 25 years ago because the finished product never really felt finished.

Our friends in Strong Island’s Pyrexia have opted for the latter with SYSTEM OF THE ANIMAL 25, a complete do-over of said album with the band’s current (and arguably strongest) lineup and the benefit of 21st century production tools. Now much of the time, these kinds of re-recordings can feel more like a vanity project for the artist’s own self-indulgence (George Lucas anyone?) and ultimately only end up creating divisions between the fans. But everything about this one feels more genuine in its approach.

For starters – much of the band’s post-SERMON OF MOCKERY output has been lost to time and bad publishing deals and are only available via YouTube rips or through very expensive used outlets. Secondly – not many folks heard this album when it came out in 1997. Still reeling from the onset of Grunge and bracing for the coming wave of Nu Metal, traditional metal bands were at a loss for an audience and were treading water to stay alive (I saw Voivod open for Pro-Pain around this period if that’s any indicator of how bad things were). SYSTEM OF THE ANIMAL came and went, Pyrexia persevered with more albums and more tours, and eventually the scene right sized itself again. Lastly – the band has been on an absolute tear lately. Between 2018’s UNHOLY REQUIEM and 2021’s GRAVITAS MAXIMUS, Pyrexia has not only reintroduced themselves to the underground metal community but reasserted their dominance crushing riffs and blunt force trauma. Chalk that up to lineup stability, Chris Basile’s growth as a songwriter and producer, and Jim Beach’s vocals from hell – an unholy death metal trinity.

If you’ve never heard the original SYSTEM OF THE ANIMAL, you’re fine and in good company (see previous statements), SOTA 25 is the definitive version and will knock you on your arse in ways the original never quite could. Thanks to beefier production values, there’s a density to tunes like “Downsized” and “Purging the Nemesis” that are painfully absent from the original. And then there’s vocalist Jim Beach; the man’s voice sounds like Cookie Monster made love to a garbage disposal, it’s otherworldly. No disrespect to journeyman vocalist Keith DeVito’s original performance, but his delivery has always been snarly and much less guttural. In the right context he’s great (see Internal Bleeding’s IMPERIUM), but hearing Beach snarling his filth across “Unpurged” makes it a night and day listening experience.

As for the tunes themselves? They hold up. That mid/late 90’s period saw a lot of traditional death metal bands leaning into hardcore tropes and SOTA was at the forefront of that experimentation. Don’t get me wrong – this is as brutal of a death metal record as you could hope for, but the riffs are compact and the breakdowns are a plenty. For what it’s worth, that sound would eventually evolve into the Slam scene we all know and love today, so there ya go, Pyrexia was ahead of their time. If you enjoyed the original SYSTEM OF THE ANIMAL, you’ll certainly dig SOTA 25. If you had no idea this was a retread of older material, you’ll dig it even more. Either way, Pyrexia is back and ready to rage. You’ve been warned (*Review by Aaron Yurkiewicz ).