LA’s melodeath sextet Once Human received a fair bit of media attention with their 2015 debut, ‘The Life I Remember’ – the first album from ex-Machine Head guitarist Logan Mader in 13 years, following Medication’s debut, ‘Prince Valium’. Mader has spent much of the 21st century focusing on production work, working with such esteemed bands as Devildriver, Gojira and Five Finger Death Punch. Following the 2015 debut, Once Human return with ‘Evolution’, due out in February 2017.
Once Human’s sound is very typical of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal – European melodic death metal mixed with some thrash and oodles of groove. They are certainly not here to break the mold. However, though their sound is rooted in their comfort zone, the sextet’s quality sets them apart from the legions of melodeath bands that have saturated the genre in the last decade.
Kicking off with a dual-pronged attack, Evolution pulls no punches with the opening tracks. “Flock of Flesh” immediately display’s Once Human’s knack for delivering a brutal mix of melody and savagery. The melodies throughout “Flock of Flesh” are incredibly memorable, and give the track an ominous atmosphere. The closing riffs flow very nicely into “Eye of Chaos”, the first track to have been released from ‘Evolution’ way back in September. The unsettling atmosphere is carried forward, and the hook-driven nature of the track almost guarantees its place in Once Human’s live set for the foreseeable future.
Throughout Evolution, Once Human demonstrate their talent for crafting a visceral, though memorable, aural assault. From the relentless thrashy tendencies of “Dark Matter” to the uncompromising hooks of “Killers For the Cure,” from the groove-laden riff-fest of “Mass Murder Frenzy” to the utterly savage “Flock of Flesh,” Once Human deliver a varied and thoroughly enjoyable masterclass in melodic death metal.
While women are becoming more and more prominent in the metal scene, there is still an incredible gap in the ratio of men to women. As such, Once Human’s vocalist Lauren Hart receives a bit more attention from the metal media than her bandmates. However, it would be criminal to claim that the attention she receives is only due to her gender – Hart stands as one of the genre’s most promising vocalists. The delivery of her growls and screams is excellent, and reminiscent of genre-legend Angela Gossow (ex-Arch Enemy), while the clean vocals she exhibits on “Paragon” and “Drain” are simply stunning.
Aptly titled, ‘Evolution’ sees Once Human advance from the “melodeath-by-numbers” debut into a stronger, more mature entity that can hold it’s own in a saturated genre. Though a couple of filler tracks drag ‘Evolution’ down and Once Human are certainly not reinventing the wheel, on the whole this is a strong, enjoyable effort that will appear on more than a couple end-of-year lists.