Eight years is a long time to wait between albums, the seismic shift in extreme metal can be huge as these Australian industrial death metallers return from their hiatus with a fourth full length. Brandishing an apocalyptic, cataclysmic approach the band focus their song writing into tracks engulfed in a shroud of sonic bleakness. Each tune oozes a sense of foreboding dread where the industrial and electronic tendrils interlace and bind their death metal style into a seamless terror filled canvas.
After a sonorous opening ‘An Epoch Ellipsis’ explodes into life with its mechanised brutality and pervasive sense of horror. With harsh deepened vocals that sense of dread is amplified substantially painting a nightmarish auditory picture. Flowing smoothly into ‘Sere Money’ the album continues the dense deathliness but backs it up with a fine quirky melodic riff that grasps hold of you with barbed acidic hooks.
The fluidity between tracks is excellent as many adopt a gentile fade out or ambient sequence that flows into the next tune making the album listen like one opus with nine chapters. With its ominous aura ‘Silent Twin’ has menacing drama linked to the barren soundscape unveiled, as the song gradually intensifies throughout its duration. Returning to a more metallised style is ‘Psoriastasis’ where blast beat ferocity drips with an inhumanity through the soulless barrage.
Clocking the eight minute mark ‘Twined Towers’ is expansive, rivulets of stark panic stricken terror coursing through from start to finish. With the much slower pacing the song produces a miasmic toxic sludge and a chilling ambience amplified by the various changes occurring. Even the more electronic soundscaping exploits of ‘Wonderlost’ are saturated in a sense of sinister poise as the song is obliterated by ‘Overpast’ that follows. The blasted opening is dense and cloying, manifesting an opacity showered with excellent drum work that comes courtesy of Psycroptic drummer David Haley who thoroughly stamps his technically adroit wizardry on all the songs.
Closing the release is ‘Parse Over’ and typifies what The Amenta are all about, is electronic infused opening being melded to a dramatic envelope as the song volcanically erupts unleashing a pyroclastic fog of brutalisation. The atmospheric posture is palpable as the song is spliced with death metal deluging with devastating results. Surging double bass runs enhance the impenetrability of the song infusing it with a blurring tornado like style before the song grinds to a slower tempo, almost like the calming outro after the previous climactic apex.
The Amenta return with a formidable slab of industrialised, horror strewn malevolence that equates to being immersed in a crucible of outright hostility and maliciousness.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
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