Axenic was a short-lived blackened death metal band from Flowery Branch, Georgia that released a demo and an EP in 1999, then they just vanished. I only ever managed to find a digital copy of their demo, Reaping Mindless Discord.
The fundamental flaw in Axenic's music is that they try to be a whole bunch of things at once without bothering to combine them in a coherent way. They play death metal riffs through a black metal lens, toss in some groove and thrash, and throw in some death/thrash vocals on top of that. Unfortunately for these guys, instead of being an awesome sandwich with all the toppings, it's more like putting all the sodas into one cup. It's a bunch of conflicting tastes that taste awful when mixed. The death/thrash vocals conflict with the more brutal nature of the riffs, the technical riffs conflict with the groovy tone. These guys are great musicians but they're terrible songwriters.
Back when I was a kid, I remember getting clumps of Play-Doh. Whenever I got bored of creating retarded creatures, I would take all the Play-Doh and mash it together into a giant ball. Instead of exhibiting a myriad of colors, it was just a single bland color. For me, it was a dull, puke-like green. Axenic is sort of like that. They take a whole bunch of metal genres and mash them into a single ball, but instead of getting something wondrous and colorful, they got something confusing and nauseating. There are a few good parts on this album, such as the backwards clean guitar on the first song that reminded me of that Majora's Mask creepypasta and the excellent bass work on the last song, but other than that, Reaping Mindless Discord is a testament to incompetent songwriting, an example of what not to do when mixing genres.
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