This Portuguese death metal act has been around for some time, almost two decades according to the promo info, but in that intervening time the only actual release has been the 2008 EP ‘The Solution Above Continuity’, a proto technical death metal assault that possessed a mechanised savagery. Fast forward a decade and the band has reappeared with the core trio, Felipe (guitar), also the founder of the band, Renato (guitars) and Sergio (vocals) at its heart plus they recruited a couple of session musicians Rolando Barros and Alex Ribeiro on drums and bass respectively both of whom reside in Portuguese brutal death metallers Grog to release a debut album.

Ten years is an eternity in extreme metal but the 2008 EP is still relevant to how the band has set themselves up for this album, the embryonic hyper technicality of that EP was evident and has been borne to fruition with this album as each musician plus the vocalist are in total sync with each other and I cannot understate how paramount that synchronisation is when dealing with this kind of technical death metal. You’ve only to listen to acts like Obscura, Beyond Creation, Gorguts etc to understand that without the meticulously crafted arrangements and skilful playing albums like this can fall absolutely flat on their back floundering in utter tedium and chaos.

When you first play “Collapsing The Outer Structure” you are beset with a tornado of instrumentation, a blurring cacophonous maelstrom but as you repeat those listens and pay attention, you have to really listen and pay attention to albums like this, it’s not background music, everything comes into focus as the title track opens the album with a hurricane of drumming that hurls you back. Embedded into that are the guitarists who fire out riffs like missiles without mercy, relentlessly clubbing the listener as “Logarithmic Cavitation” crashes in after. The unadulterated power is remorseless, the blast beats are some of the fastest you’ll hear and whilst there is a clinical atmosphere to the track that surgical ruthlessness is fractured by segues of progressive panache.

The barbaric “The Core Condition” slows things down a tad, with a cascading double kick infusion that envelops the whole song. My reference to progressivity is relevant again as the guitar work retains an aura of beguiling acrimony amplified by the grisly vocal performance. “Continuous Signal” is absolutely demented, the blasting violence is saturated with frenzied double bass as the bass guitar work tunnels through the song as “Embryonic Reanimation” continues the onslaught. The track has a Morbid Angel like posture initially before shattering into a relentless riffing tornado that had me thinking about Archspire.

More Morbid Angel style riffing appears on “Plasmatech” and whilst I may reference bands the creativity and song writing approach is their own, as the song propels the listener into a cauldron of sonic lunacy such is the speed of the track. The closing track “Tangential Threshold” is the longest tune of the album and brings together an amalgam of molten potency which I did expect to be a tad slower, but instead an invasion of riffs permeates the song alongside the hyper blasting rhythm section. The abrupt tempering of the pace sees the song delve into a treacly slower section that allows a slower more penetrating riff to bore into the listener and fades into oblivion leaving a haunting eerie vocal piece.

Whether you’re a technical death metal fan or not, this album is a ferocious nihilistic pulverising assault with ultra-precise riffing and a pin-point percussive demolition; what more can a death metal fan want.

(9/10 Martin Harris)

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