Once again, this Indian label has picked up an exceptional death metal band to add to their roster, alongside their unique products that they always unveil for each of their releases. This Spanish bands rather innocuous moniker does not do justice to the penetrating oppressive malfeasance exhibited on the songs. The album is sort of sectioned into four with each part beginning with an intro of sorts, if that is what the intent here is. ‘The Void’ opens the album with its fusion of noises and eeriness before ‘An Obsolete Creation’ smashes in with pulverising ferocity yet ingrained with their sense of melody on the riffing and structuring. Squealing, scraping lead breaks are hooked into the blasted suffocating wrath as the song’s tempo dynamics typify this whole album with slithering crawl and abyssal pacing being complemented by the unerring speed.

Whether you consider those linking intros as interludes instead is down to you, ‘Anima’ bridges into ‘Ex Oblivione’ where a dramatic posturing is felt and thrusting double kick work to enhance the density as the melodic strains are buried into the song. Slower and equally gruesome is ‘Souls In Formaldehyde’, with its dramatic backing and a very light, well it sounded like that to me, choral vocal sprinkled into the track. ‘From Beyond The Grave’ is awesome, explosive speed grapples with frenzied guitar work as here we really get hints of where this band gets their influences from, rancid old school death metal fans of acts like Morbid Angel, Deicide, very early Amorphis, Incantation plus a raft of Finnish acts I could volley out. The guitar spliced into this song is exceptional and addictive as another bridging piece, ‘The Speeches Of The Damned’ is aired and followed by ‘Awaiting The Equinox’. Again, the aggression, power and inherent vitriol is damaging, especially with the insanely deep vocals which deform every song with devastating effectiveness.

‘In The Bowels Of Voormithadreth’ gives an indication for influence too with Voormithadreth being an extinct volcano with four domes from the H.P. Lovecraft world. With blending and switching tempos the song weaves its tapestry of battering death metal with fine riff changes and grisly toning as the song neatly juts against the slower ‘The Advent Of Eternal Pain’ as here those very early Amorphis touches (I’m talking ‘The Karelian Isthmus’ and ‘Privilege Of Evil’ era here) rear up majestically flowing with malevolent claustrophobia and asphyxiating terror all backed by wonderful atmospherics.

With another interlude preceding the final track, ‘The Call Of The Great Old Ones’ acts like an intro to ‘Ancient Forgotten Tsathoggua’, which detonates from the off initially before reining in with creepy melodies and hooks and those cavernous vocals I’ve mentioned, allowing the song to hurtle along with merciless, but not blasted speed, once the vocals come in. Again, steeped in atmospherics the song entwines the song with a mystical shroud but with palpable horror as fans of death metal should be picking up this up without hesitation.

(8.5/10 Martin Harris)

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