Someone clearly got out of bed on the wrong side this morning and that someone is three Canadian blokes from Toronto whose pure blast of nihilistic fury would even give veteran war metallers like Diocletian a chill. Adversarial bleeds dissonant black metal with death metal fury, flattening scales with bludgeoning rage like a demented Deathspell Omega. The first five tracks show a casual disregard for anything that any sane person would regard as melody. Granted, that includes an ‘intro’ track – which, with what I imagine is characteristic contrariness, is actually the second track – and an interlude later on, a cinematic excerpt from Orson Wells’ 1984, which rants about endless war and boots stamping on human faces…. you got it — ‘forever’.
The first part of the album just feels a little like Adversarial getting its act together. Perhaps the stop-start of the Intro and Interlude may be to blame. It feels like a warm-up for the real sprawling vision of heaven and hell that is to come. Even so, tracks like ‘Immersion Void Paragon’ drop a few hints Adversarial beginning to size-up new paths amid all the harsh, singular intensity. But the band’s true nuanced fury and fluid mastery of their instruments takes flight in the second-half of the album as Death, Endless… finds its footing ever more sure. Cursed Blades Cast Upon The Slavescum of Christ is roughly where the band joyfully steps up the assault – presumably on as many human faces as it can find to tread its boots upon – by several notches and begins to define the band in more than one violent dimension.
The layered, rhythmic riffs and incessant rattling drum beats continue on their raging attack with a relentless barrage that is as exhausting to listen to as it must have been to play. But a sudden adrenaline rush towards the end and a semi-melodic surge seems to usher in the next chapter of the album. Seventh track Old Ruins… takes the sound in a more trippy, paranoia-driven direction with the band throwing a series of siren-like, repetitive chords out from the vortex in carefully targeted directions.
I’m always impressed when a band makes you forget you’re listening to actual music. Adversarial’s total death metal assault flirts with tripped out stoner doom with some of those gigantic, repetitive curve balls which very nearly arrive this side of your speakers as a physical presence. At times, what Adversarial produce is something one step removed from death or black metal and into pure ‘noise’. It hurls itself with such creative force that its gravity begins to bring in other elements alongside.
The title track finishes things off with one final headlong blast off into warp speed with maniacal riffs and no quarter offered or given except only a short break of velocity to catch your breath before the album finally closes. The heads-down final charge is a fitting end, even though, after a few moments of psychotic brilliance through various parts of the album, you might have been hoping for a few more fireworks. Nevertheless, the journey down Adversarial’s lightless gravity well is both crushing and irresistible.
(8/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
Leave a Reply