This New Jersey band will impress many with the fact their new albums are even more brutal than past efforts. The real recognition they should receive is achieving this while still caring about writing songs rather than, using music as a weapon to beat your ear drums out with distortion. The vocals are not the most purposeful, but they even took the time in the studio to add some nuance to the guttural exclamations. The dissonance is counterbalanced by hooky little rhythmic twists. All of this is highly effective when the album, opens but this winding and grinding formula is not as fresh on the second song. The thing about extremely heavy bands is they typically lose the shock value after the first song, after all, there is only one first time to hear it. Sure the part where it lows down to let the lower growl emerge is pretty cool but not as good as the first song.
There are plenty of subtle guitar trickers, which is an impressive enough fact considering subtlety is not what their overall sound is about. They are not afraid to pull out break-down style riffing to break up the chaos. Midway into "Reciprocal Abandonment" they introduce an odd dissonant atmosphere, showing another side to their sonic arsenal. Bands like Ulcerate have certainly done this sort of thing before. Their drummer is decent to keep up but this is clearly a guitar player's band. "Pain Enduring" hammers with a more single-minded pulse and the vocals just sounds of anger and torment along for the ride.
"Nekrotunnel" is pretty much just run-of-the-mill blasting death metal with the guitar tones really dialed in. "Dwelling on the Threshold" digs in and is a little more grooving. A few creepy touches here and there ice the cake. The nine-minute "Planet of Skin" closes the album. They take their time winding up into the song. Things do not really get started til two minutes in. It chugs and roars with much of the same power that can be found on this album's other songs. Effective but not bringing anything new to the table. I give this album a 9, impressive yes, but I am not going to say it's the best death metal album I have heard this year, we are only four months into 2024, as everyone is trying to get out their best stuff in time for the world to end, but if you want a death metal album that is dissonant and heavy while still musical this is worth your time.
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