I just picked it on a whim cause I was already planning to listen to it ten minutes later.

I updated the OP with a Youtube link to the album. My bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWcuF0eqQzw

Oh and yes the **** it is. I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of it at this point but it ****ing destroys.

Traumatic Voyage - Traumatic
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3z94BmfKJ0...ic%2Bcover.jpg

This is a slightly unconventional death metal record. Due to the reverb drenched vocals and their distand location in the mix, plus the icy, dark riffs that appear at times, this album almost had a sort of black metal vibe at times. It also reminded me of some rather gothic, "depressive" metal - most of all the old Katatonia album Dance of December Souls. The vocals and goth stylings very much pushed parts of the album in that direction at times.
They find plenty of time for more standard death metal grinding too, and that's easily what I enjoyed the least about this album.

When it goes for some fantasy roleplaying horror keyobards it's great. Jump to the 18:00 minute mark and wait a bit. You'll see what I mean. THIS is the stuff I really like on this disc.

I also noticed that the production of the album is sort of unusual. Gone are the boring, clicky drums that so much death metal suffers from. Instead, we get some reasonably organic sounding drums with some good low end to them. I liked this aspect of the production, but the guitars are almost too buzzy and aren't made to sound any clearer or heavier due to the near total absence of bass guitar in the mix. Actually, I think I hear the bass guitar, but it has this weird chorus effect on it that makes it sound way too trebly and unclear in the mix.

I know death metal like this isn't supposed to be well produced as such, but I really want some more bottom end in my death metal than this album offers. Thanks to the pummeling drums and the dramatic, wailing vocals, the album does sound decent enough on headphones. It's just not very heavy or very good when it specifically tries to be so.

Not sure what to make of it as a whole. Some songs were a bit more memorable than other tracks, but overall, I enjoyed the least death metal moments most of all. I can't really imagine coming back to this repeatedly, but it does have some charm.

7/10 skulls my death metal scale, which is different from a normal 10 scale in that I'll rate albums according to how much I expect from the genre, which isn't much.

That's putting it lightly. Generally when you hear death metal and black metal mixed it's pretty straightforward: the bludgeoning of death metal mixed with the raw intensity of black metal. Most bands don't really seem to explore the complexities or possibilities of either genre, but Traumatic Voyage weave in and out of both however they feel like, while also mixing in gothic death doom (Katatonia) and a million other things at various times. About halfway through "Shattered Dreams" the vocalist does this wailing that sounds to me closer to PiL than anything else.

Who is PiL?
You're probably completely right about it being more than just "slightly" unusual for a death metal album. I was just thinking that mixing those two genres has become a lot more common in recent years, but I still can't mention an album that sounds much like this one does.

despite my earlier comments i'm listening to the album right now. if i care about it i'll be back shortly with my thoughts.

Who is... srsly?

*throws a rock*

Nope. No one ever told me about that band before. I will say this song is pretty good so far.

Even I knew that!