Civerous : "Maze Envy"

The album cover looks almost identical to "Domination" so how can I not go into this expecting this to sound like where slime might live? Morbid Angel might be an influence, but to this band's credit, they are taking things in a more dismal direction. The growls are lower and make no attempt to form hooks. The vocals exist only to create a perverse layer of humanity being defiled with each wretched utterance. It is more of a vibration than anything that really bears being paid attention to. The way the riffs are phrased does have a machine-like grind similar to the genre Morbid Angel helped create. But most death metal bands formed after 2000, have a hard time not admitting to a Morbid Angel influence unless they are an Entombed tribute band.  The sheer heaviness they hit you with makes it hard to no be impressed with what they are laying down here, so it is not until the second song that you can ask if they can actually write songs or if are they just sadists looking to beat the shit out of your ears with their riffs. 

Perhaps one of their weaknesses as a band is dragging things out for too long, rather than knowing when enough is enough rather than just beating you with redundancy. Over half the songs are over the eight-minute mark. The only two songs under three minutes are just interludes. The growls hold more purpose and authority in the second song. The riffing is more jagged as the song carries more of a stomp. Some parts do blast off into the abyss. At under five minutes, it might be the most accessible song on the album.It feels more like Post- Vincent Morbid, in how the riffs shift over each other.  By the time we reach  "Levitation Tomb" clean guitar tones are being used in actual songs and more melodic depth is introduced. This helps separate them from the death metal pack. They also creep in some more technical aspects, but without relying on wanky guitar. 

The title track is interesting, as it has a more angular feel. The term death doom gets thrown around in regards to these guys and this feels like the first song that warrants that comparison. Also, the first passages are dark enough to touch a similar sonic space as black metal bubbles to the surface of this song. They contrast this with clean guitar tones bathing in the atmosphere. This makes the more intense blasting of other passages more bearable. The last song keeps leaning into the more morose doom side. There is a wider range of emotional responses rather than the angry pounding that Death Metal is known for. They do make their way to the in-your-face kind of blasting that is obligatory for the genre these days.  In some ways, this feels like it owes more to funeral doom in this regard. I will give this album a 9, as it works much better than most death metal these days without having to compromise much of the heaviness. Being released on 20 Buck Spin. 

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