Tuesday 1 October 2013

Nihilism Incarnate - Deconstruct The Aeons

Abyssus Records 2013
 
1.Eat Shit And Die 2.Dark Matter 3.The Lords Prey(er)
4.Butcher Bludgeons Bloodbath
 
The first aspect that grabs your attention as opening track “Eat Shit And Die” opens up is the heavy as fuck production, steamrolling out of the speakers with a massive death metal punch (courtesy of a James Murphy mastering). Describing themselves as Progressive Death Metal, there is a slight progressive influence to be heard, but overall this first track is a quite straight forward heavy death metal affair, the pace being held back at slow to mid-paced. Vocally it’s as you would expect, crushing and guttural death metal growls, not too dissimilar to an early Ill-Disposed type delivery. ‘Dark Matter’ follows on in comparable fashion with similar paces being adopted once more. What differs with this second track is that the band does take on an altogether different approach, the ‘progressive’ element more evident throughout, the guitars leading the technical and at times melodic assault. The song breaks several times into acoustic guitar lead passages which only enhance the progressive theme.
‘The Lords Prey(er) see’s the band experimenting with pace, injecting some faster sections into the mix which are short, sharp forays into something new and sit well in amongst the slower more technical passages. As the song builds it begins to take on a really epic sound and ends on an extremely atmospheric high. Closing this e.p. is ‘Butcher Bludgeons Bloodbath’ and again, it follows on in similar fashion to the previous track, flirting with faster paces, but only very briefly, which is a shame as the songs would definitely benefit from adding varying paces as opposed to being rooted firmly in the slow to mid-paced which is probably why all four songs ultimately lack that killer punch (and reading the list of influences the band cite, it is filled with groups that use speed to add to the extremity, whereas NI don’t, which baffles slightly). However, Nihilism Incarnate’s  ability and musicianship is unquestionable; the technical guitar work is flawless and extremely well composed and delivered and is accompanied by some solid drum work. Technical death metal with a progressive edge, this debut four track e.p. showcases a band that are more than capable of handling their instruments and writing well-constructed and well executed death metal songs. The lack of (mixing) pace is a slight niggling point, but this shouldn’t detract from effort the band has put into this release and it is well worth checking out!
 
7 out of 10
 
Band Page: Here
Buy It: Here
 

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