Sometimes, a quick blast of Technical Death Metal is all you need. Nothing too long or played at furious speeds, just a nice short EP with a handful of tracks on it to show off some nice, skilled playing and hard hitting metal.

Enter, Hideous Divinity. The Rome based 5 piece who have ties to bands like Hour of Penance, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Aborted are a highly competent musical unit who deliver their brand of Technical expertise on the Death Metal genre with some serious impact, and their latest musical offering, “LV-426” is a rather intriguing release. Semi-conceptual, three tracks long (one of which is a Coheed And Cambria cover!) and clocking in at just over 16 minutes in length, it has all the components needed to catch your attention and to make an impact. The one thing which I conveniently left out is that it is about Xenomorphs and acts as a sub-narrative to “Aliens”. So get ready to head on out to Hadley’s Hope and try not to get too intimate with the local wildlife, they tend to latch onto you if you let them!

“Acheron, Stream Of Woe” gets the release going and it turns out that this semi-conceptual sub narrative is all about ‘Newt’, the lone colonial survivor on the Exomoon LV 426. This makes for quite the intriguing subject given the child’s tragic backstory and her experiences throughout the film and the musical composition reflects this. Ominous and foreboding initially, it has a solid atmospheric build up intro which explodes to life in spectacular fashion. Dissonant lingering chords and synths match up with relentless blasts and ferocious growled vocals which narrate the character’s realisation that the monsters her parents always assured her were not real are actually very real and hunting everyone down. This shattering of innocence is relayed extremely well through the medium of Technical Death Metal and the rhythmic shifts from flat-out blasting fury to more intricate and complex breakdown sections helps keep the suspenseful atmosphere going.

“Chestburst” follows on from the suspense-laden opening track, and much like the way a Xenomorph develops, it explodes to life in a spectacular fashion. In a similar way to the film, which has the suspense and oppressive air of the first parts, this EP commences in a similar fashion – building up before the big action-packed sequence. Hard hitting, heavy and again, dissonantly haunting, this cacophony of blast beats, jarring stabs of chords and relentless vocal ferocity brings out the more familiar feel of a Technical Death Metal release. The wild and twisting solo flows well despite its angular feel and the way the synths and dissonant guitars augment the atmosphere sits at the right spot in the final mix – it helps pad out the sound without overpowering every other facet of the track.

Closing the release is the odd-moment: The Coheed and Cambria cover.

Usually, you would expect a Technical Death Metal band to cover something more intense or aggressive. Progressive styled music is within the realms of expectation, but to go for the more abstract side of it with Coheed And Cambria is certainly unexpected. “Delirium Trigger”, a fan-favourite from their debut album ‘The Second Stage Turbine Blade’. The original track has a slower paced feel to its delivery with solid fuzz guitars and the distinctive vocals of Claudio Sanchez leading it. The Hideous Divinity version however, is a completely different animal. The haunting dissonance Hideous Divinity have sustained across this EP works wonderfully with the composition of the track. Throwing in the intense rhythmic assaults and more aggressive feel to the tempo helps invigorate the track and honestly, if it wasn’t for the ascending melodic sequences and build up phases in the track which Coheed and Cambria are known for, I would have pegged this as a Hideous Divinity track all along! It is a well-executed cover which displays both traits of the original along with traits from the covering artist and it nails the whole dynamic of a cover track – sounding unique whilst remaining true to the base.

In all, “LV-426” is a great EP. The main mark against this three track is the length! This EP leaves you wanting more and whilst this does serve the fundamental purposes of an EP, it frustrates because this semi-conceptual narrative recording could have been delivered as a full-length release given the lore and depth of the background materials this release is drawn from. Aside from that gripe, it is an excellent Technical Death Metal release which hits the spot with its intricate composition, excellent atmospheric control and furious delivery.

(8/10 Fraggle)

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