Near-Death Travel Services
Origin and Background of Deadguy
Talking about Deadguy is like revisiting a timeline carved by ruptures and noise that shaped an entire scene. Formed in the New Jersey underground back in 1994, the band helped pave the way for modern mathcore and metalcore. With only one album released in the '90s — the now-legendary Fixation on a Co-Worker — the band broke up before reaping the rewards. But the impact was long-lasting: they influenced, divided opinions, and became cult icons. Now, with the classic lineup reunited almost three decades later, they reemerge with Near-Death Travel Services, delivering a return that feels like a punch that’s been waiting for years to be thrown.
First Impressions: Chaos Brought Back to the Surface
Listening to Near-Death Travel Services for the first time felt like facing a siren screaming inside my head. Everything pulses with urgency and despair, but not the gratuitous kind of chaos. It is a collapse that’s been choreographed with precision. The production is raw and no-frills, as if someone left the recorder running inside a boiling basement. There are no grand intros or attempts to sound modern. It’s all straight to the point, rough, organic, with a purposeful grit from those who know exactly where they’re going.
Sound Texture: Dissonance with Identity
This album doesn’t ask for permission. It enters, tears through, screams, and slams the door behind it. The guitars are sharp like twisted metal, with broken, unpredictable riffs that hit as hard as concrete slabs dragged across asphalt. The drums feel alive, shifting between bursts of fury and passages that breathe yet never fully relax. The bass anchors everything to the ground like a chain. And the vocals aren’t just screamed; they’re spit out with decades of bottled-up frustration. It feels like Tim Singer is still stuck in 1995, only with a far more precise aim.
Updated Without Concessions
What’s most impressive about Near-Death Travel Services is that it sounds current without trying to be. Deadguy isn’t trying to compete with the mathcore offspring they helped create. They simply pick up right where they left off, as if the time between albums had just been a long, strategic silence. There’s groove, there’s weight, there’s dissonance. Everything is delivered with the confidence of a band that has torn apart stages and now does it with more method and less ego.
Atmosphere and Closure: Noise That Clings to the Skin
From beginning to end, the album leaves no room for distractions. There’s something industrial, almost ritualistic, in the final tracks. “Wax Princess,” for example, sounds like the band is processing the collapse of the modern world in real time. It’s tense, slow, dragging, and uncomfortable. The album doesn’t want to be easy to listen to, and that’s exactly why it hooks you. It dirties, provokes, and becomes addictive.
Conclusion: A Return That’s Not a Revival
Near-Death Travel Services is not a cheap nostalgic attempt. It’s a brutal and honest continuation of what Deadguy always was: a chaotic force that refuses to follow formulas. There’s no attempt to sound like before, nor to please a new crowd. It’s simply the band doing what they do, and doing it even better. This is a rare comeback where time hasn’t dulled the edges — it has only sharpened them.
If this album had a smell, it would be rusted machinery working with rage. If it had a texture, it would be sandpaper against the soul. And if it were an experience, it would be standing at the edge of collapse and choosing to dive in headfirst.
