Relocated to Austria, Canadian act Antediluvian have a fairly extensive discography with a raft of splits and EPs, but previously only two other full lengths as they land a sonic scourge on the Earth with their third album. If you have witnessed the aural destruction of their previous atrocities then you know that Antediluvian are as intense and malevolent as it’s possible to get in the blackened death metal genre, their intrinsic ability to write utter nihilistic filth is comparable to acts like compatriots Revenge, Portal and a raft of other bands whose sole mission is corruption of your essence.

Looking back through their other releases their brand of metal could be described as war metal due to its unhinged controlled cacophony, but the stark differences compared to previous releases is the change in song lengths, the addition of a wealth of subtle effects and the way they have interwoven expansive tracks into an album seething with desolate destruction. Some albums whizz by in a flash, not ‘The Divine Punishment’, its intentional endurance is its asset ensuring you, the listener, are completely immersed into its fabric, enveloping you, devouring you and spitting you out the other side metaphorically disfigured.

You only have to listen to the opener, ‘Obscene Pornography Manifests In The Divine Universal Consciousness’, yes even the song titles are an endurance, to fully realise just how monstrous this album is going to be. Its expansive dissonance is backed by riffs that arrive like a tsunami, carrying with it the flotsam and jetsam of percussive thunder, bass grotesquery and, of course, some truly horrific vocal incantations that situate themselves within the sphere of a tectonic shift. Everything in the opener tells you are in for an assault of epic proportions, rancid guitar riffs possessing an opacity that could black out the sun as ‘All Along The Sigils Deep’ follows the opener. Their penetrating guitar work is bolstered by the exceptional drum skills of Mars Sekhmet whose drum fills have pervading density and brutality, something this album has in reams.

‘How The Watchers Granted The Humans Sex Magick In The Primoridal Aeon’ finishes an opening triplet that spans nearly 25 minutes smashing in with unceremonious barbarity, but offering subtle vocal stylings that sound like choral backing, as their atmospheric structuring ensures the song has that malfeasant aura. Also crashing in is ‘Guardians Of The Liminal’ a pyroclastic onslaught with grisly riffing and a stark inhumanity that prevails not just throughout this song but the whole album as it flows supremely into ‘Tamasic Masturbation Ritual’, and if you’ve not realised by now this album has a focus on sexuality, particularly the deviance that can be associated with it. The animalistic nihilism is tangible with screeching lead guitar piercing through the mix, tormenting your auditory organ to the point of torture.

As I said earlier this album is imbued with lots of effect and ‘Temple Prostitute’ is a fine example, prior to which an interlude laid the groundwork for the sinister, oppressive malevolence that follows. With moans, groans and wailing the song is a tumultuous affair, reeking of ghoulish eeriness as the song sucks the life out of you with its disturbed approach. Likewise, with ‘Circumcision Covenant’ a song overflowing with hideous skilful chaos bordering on noise with no finesse whatsoever, as at times I felt the song was in goregrind territory due to the vocal style.

Closing this terrifying and egregious album is ‘Winged Ascent Unto The Twelve Runed Solar Anus’, a track saturated in sadism, its unrepentant assault spans the nine minute barrier, and within we are subjected to terrifying ferocity, backed by its opening noise based like intro. The song is unremitting, it beats you down, stamps on you and then molests the soul from you, its barrage of riffing rarely easing up even if the speed isn’t always at the cliff edge of falling into oblivion.

There will be few extreme metal albums, let alone within blackened death metal, as intense and inhuman as ‘The Divine Punishment’, its intransigent journey through sonic horror is likely to be unparalleled this year as once it was over, I breathed a sigh of relief that I survived.

(8.5/10 Martin Harris)

https://www.facebook.com/antediluvian.official

https://nuclearwarnowproductions.bandcamp.com/album/the-divine-punishment