I just picked this off the lists, not knowing the name, because of ‘cosmic’ ‘Lovecraft’ and ‘black/death’ plonked in the description if I’m honest. No previous knowledge of these Italians, but being let down too many times by other death metal bands trying to do a Lovecraft but with clean tech death and proggy noodlings aside I am still a sucker for the possibility.

‘Becoming The Light Eternally Driving On The Photon Sphere’ is a dark, and beautifully bass heavy opener. The production spreads out the instruments excellently so that bass line can be heard perfectly in the mix as an epic black metal melody opens out the driving death metal. The momentum speeds up in a heartbeat, The tempo shifts are many but fluid but the atmosphere remains epic and indeed cosmic as they drive on. It’s weird but here and there I get that same hair raising melodic style that Borknagar have owned for so long yet melded to a far harsher sound.

Well damn. If this goes on I have a winner.

‘Interstellar Medium’s Rhapsody’ begins heavier, guttural and pounding. Utter death metal driven home with a nice rough edge. The engine room in this song is just huge and the adding of some varied vocals, punishing slow sections and a rumbling, blackened grind is just…well, perfect. And yet again they bring up the speed and the black metal influence with melody from the void. ‘Three Ways Of Death After Gravitational Collapse’ (don’t you just love these titles?) has a brooding atmosphere despite the relative speed in part due to that glorious deep bass sound. The riffs are superb, relentless but as captivating as the pull of the Blind Idiot God themselves. Clean vocals add a little prog styling but not too much and certainly not lightweight. Oh my, I don’t think there’s an escape from this one.

‘Screaming From The Throat Of A Reversed Light Being’ just smothers you in a way old Portal used to (just with without the impossible backwards riffs) and feels utterly unknowable even as the blast hits. ‘Find Your Death, Cosmic Wreckage’ pretty much tears your soul out through your throat; chthonic sounds pulling you down and imprisoning you. ‘Blood And Gods Know Where Weakness Is’ pursues its goal relentlessly but is impossible not to get snagged on the spines of the riff and the weaving guitar and the subtle keyboards.

‘The Eternals’ Dream Out Of Time and Frames’ has a chaotic feel with clean called vocals around the unsettling riff. It just… it’s like Lovecraft telling you the angles are somehow wrong. Something beautifully off kilter.

‘Del Tramonto Sul Nulla, Dove Fuoco Diventa Cielo’ (apparently something like ‘of the sunset over nothing, where fire becomes sky’) doesn’t so much close the album as leave us marooned in a place we are not supposed to be. Unsettled, confused, suddenly pulled from our vast sea of ignorance. Alone.

A fantastic, writhing thing of an album. It has strange flourishes and amazing shades to its darkness but it still is a monolith of sound and black/death metal. Not a single moment of tedium, not a track that doesn’t demand attention.

Frankly with this and Vircolac already this year death metal is in fine shape. Occult, cosmic, riddled with horror and unpleasant knowledge and mad visions. Yeah this is a fine, fine album.

(8.5/10 Gizmo)

https://www.facebook.com/HADITDEATHMETAL

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/metaphysical-engines-approaching-the-event-horizon