Always nice to receive an actual physical product to review in these days of downloads and streaming. Also cool to get a couple of fine death metal albums from Great Dane Records of which this French band is my first of a couple of reviews for the label, the other being Calcined’s new album. Marseille based act Breeding Chaos seem to have materialised from nowhere with their first release appearing in 2023, though they technically formed in 2020 and were in other bands prior to this one. A quick listen of the band’s debut EP ‘Diffraction Matters’ indicates a band finding their niche and whilst a decent effort in itself it felt a little disjointed albeit well played. ‘Distant Planets’, though, has definitely found its niche within the straight death metal sphere but edged with tons of melodicism that fans of the melodic death scene can appreciate. The title track opener is an intro piece of acoustic guitar and slight eerie serenity that builds nicely towards ‘Magnetic Interactions’. Once it kicks in you get the overt melodic riff style initially but it quickly switches into a gnarly riff that reminded me of early Gorefest. The song is extremely catchy and I have played it a few times because I really like the riff on it but as it progresses it switches into a more doom-death like foundation with a creepy edge.

‘Among The Dead’ opens like straight doom-death, the slow placing funnels the song down a desolate avenue before the vocal growl emanates from the song’s bowels. There are plenty of changes, be it tempos, riffs or adorning the song with some technical like drum fills that make the song powerful and engaging. I’m sure some listeners will say the song has some Hypocrisy traits, which it does and like the Swedish band they like to keep the songs dense and catchy via the riffs similar to the mid era of Hypocrisy. ‘Accretion Rate’ has a short fade-in phase before the tune implements a slightly higher end riff, yet imbibed with a darkness that is carried through the tune’s density. I’d even say the riff is borderline heavy metal rather than death metal but the vocals of course send it down the grisly abyss and especially the increase in pace which appears.

An interlude piece called ‘Pillars Of Creation’ splits the album in half and normally I’m not a favour of doing this in death metal albums, but I can see how the piece of music fuses both halves supremely well and leads into ‘Gamma Afterglow’ with its melodic riff and build-up. The cohesive transition to double bass is nicely done as the song offers reams of accessibility that you can practically hum along to. In contrast ‘Birth Of The Abyss’ is a pervasive opaque track that certainly has plenty of Hypocrisy like sonic mannerisms particularly with the grisly riff that I really like. The song has a bounce like groove even though it isn’t in any way speedy blending in a plethora of changes. I also really like the subtle changes in speed which whilst brief afford the song that bit more variety as ‘Abysmal Sorrow’ follows. Its distorted opening has an ominous tone before the slow permeating riff filters in as here the tune is purely doom-death to these ears and very like that Swedish band I’ve already mentioned a few times.

‘Stone Cross’ is the penultimate tune before an outro piece and starts with an intro phase of what sounds like bells, but is probably something else. The lingering opening riff reeks of despair as we also get a clean vocal that is virtually spoken before the inevitable change to growls and gutturalness. I really liked the start-stop riff, making the song even catchier, yet balanced with plenty of brutality. A lot of thought has gone into the flow within the songs and between them to craft a fluid cohesive listen that ends with the outro piece ‘Bitter Closure’ and is very similar to how the album began.

A fine debut full length from Breeding Chaos, one that touches base on a raft elements, amalgamating everything into one seamless enjoyable album.

(8/10 Martin Harris)

https://www.facebook.com/breedingchaos.band

https://greatdanerecords.bandcamp.com/album/distant-planets

https://www.greatdanerecs.com/eshop/web