Ossuarium – Living Tomb

February 2019 – 20 Buck Spin

After being signed to 20 Buck Spin last year, Tomb Mold's Cerulean Salvation was propelled to relative fame, and gained a spot on Bandcamp's best-selling death metal records. Hopefully Ossuarium gain as much well-deserved recognition after releasing Living Tomb via 20 Buck Spin. Psychedelic is not a common term in the death metal underground, a world mostly described as brutal, ominous or repugnant – yet Ossuarium build upon the idea that neither are mutually exclusive, and mix both to great effect while staying within the realm of their genre.

Leads reminiscent of a detuned sitar reverberating through a cold Arabian night appear throughout the record, effectively building up or releasing tension and giving Living Tomb more momentum than it could ever gather with riffs alone. Malicious Equivalence shows the proverbial dark side of the moon, an evil approach to atmosphere built with the wails of lost souls recreated through effect pedals and the nastiest pinch harmonics since Vader. Living Tomb is a quirky album, from content to structure – a two piece End Of Life Dreams And Visions split by Malicious Equivalence is an original approach. So is Ossuarium's effort to write both psychedelic leads and sections reminiscent of Kerry King's most inaccessible work, but successfully mixing styles is what they do best.

Despite lauding Living Tomb's original ideas, it's still a somewhat orthodox death metal record with some catchy hooks like the intro to Corrosive Hallucinations, a riff I'll be mindlessly ripping off for years to come. Everything falls into place, supported by a voice that might actually be coming from a coffin 6 feet under. As a side note, the cover art was done by the legendary Dan Seagrave, and while it's not his most gruesome or detailed work, the crumbling walls of cold blue stone housing sculptures of bone like some abandoned catacomb feel fitting for such an album, both melancholic and menacing.

Comments

Sulphurous - Dolorous Death Knell

Sulphurous – Dolorous Death Knell December 2018 – Dark Descent Records 90s revival and cavernous death metal started gaining popularity about two years ago, with bands such as Phrenelith and Pissgrave being propelled into quasi-mainstream success thanks to a couple of public figures introducing their audiences to an otherwise relatively underground facet of death metal. Dark Descent Records have certainly capitalized on said revival, signing giants of the genre like Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice, and previously Chthe’ilist (and Mitochondrion to a certain degree). As with any other cavernous death metal record, the production is the first thing you’ll notice – it’s all suffocated, as if the amps were draped in thick curtains. Few effects and no triggers are applied to the drums, giving the whole package a very live/practice room aspect. Despite the apparent muddiness of Dolorous Death Knell, everything’s quite audible – even the lower registers somehow retain ...

Five the Hierophant – Over Phlegeton

Five the Hierophant – Over Phlegeton Dark Essence Records – 2017 There's a rare breed of album which instantly becomes a cult classic, and I can confidently say Over Phlegeton is one of them. Experimental, weird, bizarre, none of these words come close to describing just how extraordinary and interesting this record is. If I had to draw parallels with another band, I'd say it's a heavier, more mature version of Mamaleek, with many similar elements such as the ethnic percussions or non-traditional scales, but with a much darker visage and more detailed composition. There have been incredible avant-garde metal albums using unconventional instruments, but none have been so tactfully used as the saxophone is on Over Phlegeton. Played as a full instrument and not a token nod to some jazzy experimentation, Five the Hierophant explore the extremeties of what the sax can do – from screaming leads floating above the guitars to wailing voices in the wind, passing by hear...

Crawl – Necrotic Fear

Crawl – Necrotic Fear April 2019 – Anomalous Mind Records Crawl is a one-man project I stumbled upon in 2018, after the release of their split with Leviathan, opening with the irate At the Forge of Hate, which might have been the heaviest side on any Leviathan split ever. Necrotic Fear continues the tradition of whipping the listener in the face with bass strings, but for pacing's sake the album is broken up by sinister lulls like the alcoves on the cover, providing refuge from the wind tunnel that the other songs seem to imitate. Everything from the art to the drums is distorted, almost feeling like a more noise based project than a metal one, and we're in the territory of the non-riff, where feedback and drone are how hatred are expressed. Let's go with blackened sludge. The opener and closer are similar in that they both showcase a more subtly menacing approach, akin to dark ambient, but in different ways. Paralyzed, I Awaken... is a melancholic dirge, th...

Undergrind Metal

Search This Blog