Amber Wave. Catalog Number: PROS106321 Color: Gold Format: LP UPC: 656191063210 The Fundamental Component is the debut studio album American heavy melodic death metal band Byzantine. Originally released on February 10, 2004, this 2024 20th anniversary pressing celebrates Byzantine's relevance and longevity, as the band continues cranking out new challenging music today. "If Lamb of God, Pantera, Meshuggah, and Slayer were a dysfunctional family, then Byzantine would be the bastard child they would be fighting custody battles over." - Lambgoat "Byzantine's 2004 debut must have been a total anomaly in the metal landscape at the time. The album opens with "Hatfield", a schizophrenic thrasher filled with razor-sharp riffs, exercises in polyrythmic groove, and some brutal-ass breakdowns. This song alone gave a good introduction to the beast that was Byzantine and what they were about. The song was so well-written and so well-composed. It's so rare that I hear songs this well put-together, much less entire albums, but this level of excellence prove to be the case in all three of them for Byzantine. The Fundamental Component not only has great songs, great riffs, great grooves, great solos and great vocals, it's got tremendous diversity, too. Every song on this album sounds completely different from the others, which is ANOTHER characteristic all of Byzantine's albums would share." - NO CLEAN SINGING