There’s been a lot of bad news coming out of Turkey recently, with terrorist attacks, attempted coups, EU wranglings and so on. It’s times like this that we need to step back and realise that it’s just a country filled with people and, like everywhere else, people like to make music. Step up God Mode to swipe the politics and nonsense aside and demonstrate that the people of Turkey like to kick arse with the best of them.
With a name like God Mode I expected opener “Genesis” to be about an old gaming console with plenty of background bleeps and bloops, but instead it’s an intense and fast-paced head-pounder… as is almost every track on Hybrid Lying Machine. Huge bass sounds crunch away at the inside of your ears while new vocalist Erdinç Öztan spits (or rather growls) venom into the holes thus created.
Subject matter is political and religious in nature rather than the geeky tone I was expecting. “124000”, if I understand correctly, is about the numerous prophets sent by Allah: “It’s up to you to decide, which one is true”. The title track itself about corruption in bureaucracy.
God Mode have a sound akin to older Sepultura – pre-Schizophrenia – when they were still pretty death-y. On top of that, they’ve layered some thrash and then, just for kicks, some atmospheric leanings such as around the verses in “So Called Sins”. It’s a huge sound – I think that’s the best way to describe it. The whole album sounds like you’re in front of the speakers at a well-engineered venue.
Overall this album is heavy as f*ck. Plain and simple. There are a couple of lighter moments, such as some clean (guest?) vocals during “Generation-Z” and a bit of acoustic noodling that makes up instrumental track “Healing Process” but these are just little gaps in the heavy, black clouds. I particularly like “0100000101000100”, and not just because it’s a sneaky way of hiding the song’s “proper” title of “AD”. Bonus points if you can figure out how you get from one to the other!
Since first album Tempus vs. Mortis, the band have had quite a change in line-up. As well as Oztan coming in on vocals, Tuna Dincer has taken over bass duties and Berk Sualti is now on drums. The fact that one of the things that strikes me so much about the album is the rhythm section speaks volumes about these two new recruits.
With a third album already being planned, God Mode are very much a band to keep an ear out for.
Hybrid Lying Machine is out on September 19th
God Mode: facebook
