Four of the tracks on this debut album by French death metal act Nihilanth appeared on their debut EP of the same name that was released in January of this year. I was left very impressed with this debut album by four band members who it appears have played in other bands which I won’t go into here. Suffice to say the band stick to an old school death metal approach and judging by the tsunami of bands that are appearing on the death metal radar playing this style they are in mortal danger of being swamped by said tsunami by the sheer quality of acts appearing. You’ve only to read the number of reviews appearing on Ave Noctum not just by me but by my fellow writers to get a sense of how much quality is out there.

You can now add Nihilanth to riding that gigantic tsunami wave and whilst they’ll never get any awards for writing something ingenious or creative they make up for it by delivering an album of authentic bludgeoning power from start to finish which we all love in death metal… right. When you listen to this album you’ll say that riff sounds like that band, that one sounds like another and so on, but so what, you can do that with most bands and in most genres and stripping most riffs back to their core they sound like Sabbath anyway… ooh controversial. ‘Le Desosseeur De Cadavres’ opens this release and carves into you with the ceremonial finesse of a demented butcher, its approach is to disembowel with guttural riffs but allow the guitarists to demonstrate their ability fluidly when required.

‘Endless Red Stream’ is mid era Death personified, the no frills approach is hook laden with some fine bass work and excellent riffs with guitar work you cannot fail to immerse yourself in. The deluging drum work is the proper old school warring style, massively opaque and dense it feels like every hit is cracking a rib and the kick drums are undulating over you. Contrasting this song with ‘Inversion Of Values’ you get a song that crashes in via Morbid Angel like complexity with crunching rhythms and a slower approach right before the song plunges into some Suffocation like thuggery where the double bass blast beats hammer into the song.

I thoroughly enjoyed ‘A Promontory Of Pain’ where some more Death like touches appear after the short intro piece. The riff break is ultra-catchy and whilst I said this album isn’t breaking new ground it is refreshing to just sit back and allow a death metal album to pin you in your seat and kick the living shit out of you, which this does. Equally monstrous is ‘Shared Minds’ where a tuneful riff has the Suffocation vibe going on, chugging along nicely before the decapitating riff break and accompanying demolishing double kick work and is easily my favourite song on the album with its blend of Death, Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation in equal doses.

With a far eerier riff, even doom riddled ‘Entity’ shifts the mood of the album momentarily before the song adopts a huge movement in density. The song has gravitational intensity created by the drum work that seals every pore of the song as the guitar work has Chuck like styling before the album closes with the chaotically driven ‘Visions Of Al-Hazred’. Being slightly longer the track has a more tuneful approach. Notwithstanding however it is still supremely heavy, and unleashes one of the albums most intense blasted sections and concludes an album that may not be ground-breaking but has plenty for any discerning gruesome death metal aficionado.

(8/10 Martin Harris)

https://www.facebook.com/Nihilanthfr

https://greatdanerecords.bandcamp.com/album/graceless-planet