Catapult the Sun - Martyrdom (2026) Review

In Western art and Christian tradition, there’s a recurring theme centered on a 3rd - 4th century Egyptian hermit named Anthony the Great, considered one of the founders of monasticism. According to early hagiographies, and especially the source of Athanasius of Alexandria, Anthony retreated to the desert to pursue an ascetic life, where he was subjected to intense psychological trials. These “trials” were not merely restricted to the realm of morality (e.g resisting pleasure), but often described as demonic assaults, illusions of wealth, and hallucinations. In a broader interpretation, the Temptation of Saint Anthony represents the battle between spiritual discipline and the natural chaos of the human mind.

Such a depiction is on the front cover of the Catapult the Sun debut record, Martyrdom (as it was engraved in the 15th century by Martin Schongauer), giving feels of raw black metal / dungeon synth or a Brodequin album art, but this record sounds nothing like either. After a series of EPs between 2020 - 2024, Athens-based project finally puts together a full-length album of a particularly grounded strain of instrumental sludge / doom metal, defiantly unadorned and courteous in execution. By eschewing vocals entirely, the guitars carry all the responsibility for sensation and narrative, and the band refuses to decorate the compositions with anything more than the essentials.

Standing firmly against exhibitionism, Martyrdom breathes and complies to simple but substantial principles: produce a natural sound, serve the song, trust the riffs and their effect. The guitar work carries a concrete density and never stagnates, offering a smooth flow that subtly shifts emphasis as the tracks progress to carry on forward momentum even within the slowest passages. I’d say doom stands at the core of the album, but the band speaks the tongues of drone and sludge with its own abstraction. Fans of flashy hooks may be disappointed, as time passes slower and less chaotic than normal within these particular walls.

"A Pale Stine" moves at its own pace to set the atmosphere properly, and is one of the record's more permissive tracks. Moments of clean guitar lines is where Martyrdom approaches post-metal directly, with a highlight the thrilling main melody of "Powerful Dark Objects (Mind Bender)", as well as the more dismal, sludgy "Insanity Has Thin Walls". Evenly ugly is the shortest track "Noon Creeper" (sounds like something from the self-titled debut by Union of Sleep, but with no vocals). A beautiful post-metal mattress allows for a significantly faster section on "The Word Made Flesh", which reminded me of the few occasions across their discography when Bongripper played black metal - also the highest tempo Catapult the Sun pick up on Martyrdom by far.

Final track "Black Sails On Wine-Dark Seas" features beefy guitars strongly reminiscent of current Electric Wizard, but still the album deservingly fits in any playlist that would also include names like Omega Masiff, Eyehategod or Year of No Light, with Bongripper remaining the strongest parallel I could think of when listening to these Athenian raiders. Martyrdom borrows from a handful of subgenres which are anyway bordering each other, yet it still has its own sound and manages well in terms of delivery, a feat that is sometimes more difficult for instrumental bands. A fine propulsion of potential evident from their EPs, and a decent first record all around.

Release: March 12th, 2026 | Independent
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Highgate - Prophecies of Eternal Horror (2026) Review

Despite having been around for a little more than two decades, Kentucky’s sludge / doom metal trio Highgate have never entered my radar and their fourth full-length album, Prophecies of Eternal Horror, is the introduction work of the band for me. With a self-titled debut released as early as 2008, and 13 years since the previous record, Survival, these guys are no newcomers to the ominous sound of sludge nihilism. Latest work endorses the ugliness of urban reality over any kind of elegance, it has the grit of the street and a confrontational attitude that bears the scars of bands like Noothgrush and Grief, topped with criticism on systemic decay, control and decadence.

On Prophecies of Eternal Horror, there are five, riff-driven tracks mostly moving at snail pace, following a recipe rather simple but tested. Slow-burn repetition is used as a weapon and constantly exerts pressure on top of explicitly painful, high-pitched screams a la Eyehategod, aiming for an experience as uncomfortable as dragging yourself through day to day in the modern city life. The record deliberately lacks any sense of atmosphere often found in other forms of doom metal, and trades it for a stripped-down, corrosive texture that crawls and scratches the skin as it progresses. Highgate are friends of monotony, sticking to simplistic riff structures that lay on the genre’s basics. 

Paradoxically, it’s quite a listenable record despite the raw production, as each and every note gets enough exposure and there’s discernible separation between instruments that allows for the space necessary to avoid drowning the compositions. The background presence of the bass is essential, and the mixing gives emphasis on the raspy vocal work, which is one of the sharper elements to get through on the album. Lyrically, themes of immediate, tangible horrors of reality like war, class conflict and religious fundamentalism, are brought forth without much metaphorical cushioning. Prophecies of Eternal Horror is blunt music-wise and text-wise, as Highgate lack the subtlety and are proud of it.

After a gloomy acoustic guitar intro, the nine-minute opening track “Terraforming Hell” fuels riffing that advances languidly like a tired horse on an endless path, as the vocals maneuver at the same rhythm as the slow guitars. It’s one of the few moments that Highgate play a little bit faster in the middle part of the piece, which makes up for an initial slight diversity before diving back to the album’s overall inevitability of doom. Both “Death Comes” and “Deceiver” maintain cyclical moodiness, while the band turns sinister on “At Paranoia’s Poison Door”, which is more evidently charged in terms of lyrics, and looks into the neighborhood of blackened doom trouble.

Narration that channels anxieties of authoritarian control open the last track “The Writhing Dawn”, which doesn’t get any faster or brighter across its nine minutes of length. Rhetoric flows naturally with Highgate’s music, even if it never over performs, keeping the pace low and the theatrics even lower. Prophecies of Eternal Horror resonates well with bleakness and depletion, keeping a clear identity that you can recognize quickly when pressing play. It doesn’t really escalate at any point except maybe for a couple of instances, but that’s also the justified mentality of the band. Fans of barren doom / sludge of helplessness will appreciate this.

Release: March 27th, 2026 | HPGD Productions
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Rosa Faenskap - Ingenting forblir (2026) Review

When did contemporary Norwegian black metal shift from corpse-painted despotism to more reflexive frameworks? Rosa Faenskap's sophomore album Ingenting forblir (= nothing endures) challenges the country's sonic tradition while not completely abandoning it, in what is a continuum of dark hardcore / post-black metal with a distinct Nordic genealogy. Having been oblivious of the trio's debut Jeg blir til deg (2023), I grappled with the record without knowing what to expect, which certainly wasn't this hybridization of tremolo worship, clean guitar diffusion and temporal undulation that consistently draws from multiple stylistic reservoirs (doom, prog, post-rock, punk) even with pure black metal as the anchor of its formalism.

Opening piece "Den svake mannen" is the instructive example of the band's methodology, tinkering shoegaze-like guitar lines on a path that gradually moves in heavier doom / black metal aggression. Some of the most characteristic Norwegian outcries can be found on the first notes of "Faenskap for alltid" (and later, also on "Bygg til himmelen", but of course not exclusively), but they never overstay their welcome. Punk-inflected vocals and abrupt tempo shifts, frequently switching with more layered post-rock breaks, felt to me like Rosa Faenskap consciously attempts to re-situate black metal within the family tree of radical underground music, and maybe wash some of the stain away.

The album's concept truly is the hottest punchline here. Where's the misanthropy, where's the pagan romanticism or the glorification of death? The band's intensity of expression has political concerns, with lyrics about social injustice and rising hatred, environmental worry and queer liberation. This alone will stir the pot enough for Ingenting forblir to be discussed, but it's engaging enough from a musicological perspective to grant at least the basic level of acknowledgement. Momentum of hardcore-boosted black metal across instances of ambient, almost cosmic interludes on "La barna leve" and "Klarhet i kaos" keeps the attention and never lets the dance between genres to quiet down.

One of my favorite moments on the album is the gloomy acoustic guitar introduction of "Famler i hatet", as well as the continuation in tormenting, mostly middle-paced speed and howling vocals, which randomly reminded me of another track by the Danish dark hardcore band Église, named "Have I Become Hell". Possibly not related anywhere else except my brain, but they do fit in the same playlist. Ingenting forblir covers an emotional range from despair to optimism, most notably in the almost ten-minute closing track "Jeg våkner snart", where the band accumulates all the rhythm and distortion it can to finish things off in a form of cleansing. It's one of the most demanding pieces but flows nicely, as does the whole of the record.

Apart from the elephant in the room, which will not be commented further, this is how experimentation and unrest can result in an album's benefit. Rosa Faenskap's musical multiplicity lifts them above the average blackgaze atmospheric wash. It gets its hands dirty when it needs to despite the apparent eclecticism meant to scare off black metal's bad boys. Some changes did feel a bit sudden, and some softer instances stretched, but the excitement doesn't reduce when listening to it. I could say, as exciting as hearing what people would have to say about it. 

Release: March 6th, 2026 | Fysisk Format
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

  

Protrusion - The Last Suppuration (2026) Review

Protrusion's self-titled promo in 2023 fell on my lap around release date and I remember enjoying the worship of all things old school, yet I lost touch of the band and forgot since then. By the time the first new single Boiled At Birth dropped earlier this year, I hoped it would be the precursor of a full-length release in the same reverse progression, and that’s exactly what debut The Last Suppuration is. Even the title of the specific track immediately gives vibes of the old rotten years somewhere between the release of Butchered at Birth and the Boiling Humans EP, which is where this album ultimately belongs.

Below the ground, suffocating brutal death metal thrives on the decay of a forgotten atmosphere that was somehow captured by the noisy recordings of the earliest bands, yet it hasn’t been easily replicated since. Protrusion embrace tradition with gleeful morbidity and deliver a record dredged in the damp crypts of the early ‘90s, picking up influences from various giants like Suffocation or Mortal Decay, yet The Last Suppuration still feels refreshing to listen to, even as a new release in 2026. It looks back with romanticism but doesn’t mimic, explicitly mentioning the Morrisound-era death metal as a main influence and aiming to shape an equally ferocious album, reasonably succeeding with The Last Suppuration.

First things first, you’re welcomed with the grim artwork by none other than John Zig, who has done covers for countless bands, notably for Deeds of Flesh, Pathology, Defeated Sanity, Disavowed etc… Not only the band line-up includes members involved in the past in projects like Human Filleted, Found Hanging and Gorgasm, they’ve also recruited Tony Tipton from the legendary Regurgitation for the studio magic - seriously, how much death metal stench can one endure? Album opener “Confined to Anguish” presents twisted riff structures, suffocating mid-tempo grooves and vocals from the deepest depths, touching the unadulterated brutality of a combination of Chris Barnes on the first Cannibal Corpse records, and Demilich’s Antti Boman.

I quickly flipped over the striking guitar tone on the album, offering thick and murky distortion with enough precision to digest every scourging riff section. Half-buried and unwilling to stay dead, The Last Suppuration’s sound was forged to press on the listener and to feed from the genre’s roots, but above all it’s the tracks themselves that are exceptional, and their quality stands out to me the most here. The sombre piano opening, alongside the synth use and slower-paced middle part of “Morbid Mortality” almost gives it an early Greek black metal feeling, as the band keeps the tempo down to the gutter with the ominous “Exhumer’s Romance” and “Accursed Skin” (not a Teitanblood cover!). Apart from the filthy guitar layers, periodic soloing enhances the compositions and shows how well-versed Protrusion is in peak death metal.

For me, the array of “Boiled at Birth” right before “Slugs of Decadence” remains a standout even after listening to the whole album, as it strongly felt like listening to proto-brutal / technical death metal from a time these subgenres were not yet established. The underlying bass work on these tracks is impressive and the vocals introduce higher pitched variation and, also found later on “Scorned Vengeance” and the self-titled track, with the latter seriously approaching instances of clearer, uninterrupted groove. The Last Suppuration closes with the longest piece, “Anthropophilic Anomaly,” a fitting finale that gathers the record’s strongest elements. Dominating middle-paced riffs, a glorious church bell ringing at the track’s every turn and nudging at traditional doom metal, and an absolutely synth-driven, epic ending. Clearly the most ambitious track on the album, concluding Protrusion’s convincing first effort.

The territory is dark, the fidelity to the genre’s vows admirable. Rusted blades grinding against bone with a conviction to feel vital without engaging in radical experimentation, Protrusion’s debut feels like it holds the scepters of vile death metal that’s controlled and bestial at the same time. The Last Suppuration belongs to an ever-growing, ever-festering catalogue of underground records that rip to shreds and take no prisoners. Recommended for fans of the cave.

Release: March 13th, 2026
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

 

Acranius - Whiteout (2026) Review

It's always nice to come across albums with confidence, unapologetic about their identity. Having a taste for non-conventional music always comes with the silent danger of a false sense of raised intellect when one reaches its more hard-to-reach branches, especially in extreme metal. Since forming in Rostock, Germany in 2009, Acranius have happily stayed on the far side of that highway, steadily merging death metal, slam grooves and breakdown-heavy aggression with crystal clear sound on top a gorilla attitude in person and material. I've partied enough with their first three albums, but Mercy Denied (2022) turned out to be even more punishing than normal, and the band keeps on that trajectory with latest release, Whiteout.

There are nine tracks and a total of 23 minutes duration, so there's no time to waste getting to the point. Whiteout's blueprint of stomping blast beats, mixture of gutturals and monster growls, crushing tempos hitting like slabs of concrete immediately explode on the two-minute opener "Prove Them Wrong". Cutting but pristine and loud production, allowing for the guitars to punch and the bass to rumble ominously underneath, as Acranius torture the guitars not for riff ingenuity, but for rhythmically addictive brutality. Unnecessary buildup is avoided like the plague. The more the album rages, the more your biceps grow. "Synchronized" and "Sworn to Repay" continue the assault in line with the band's formula of fast blast sections that suddenly collapse into slow, smothering slams, while properly juggling with the momentum. 

The album's middle section features Acranius at their most blunt, riding a relentless measured beating with the pounding, repetitive riff on "Dogma". A locked-in-one track that produces some of Whiteout's heaviest moments, as follower "Forced Dread" pushes the tempo further and strongly emphasizes how all these tracks are tailor-made for concert chaos. "A Vow Unspoken" and "Counterlife" are two of the fuller tracks of the record, occasionally tickling the otherwise standard tempo and pull back the intensity a couple of times, just so the next groove slaps harder. Towards Whiteout's end is where the band leans even more into their deathcore self (hey, roll back and feel the breakdown on "Dogma" again though) with "Waste of Life" and "Convoi", these guys really are engineers of festival devastation.

The band has kept refining its sound to a razor edge, being on their best behavior while inside their comfort zone. Sometimes, what use is to experiment when the machine operates so well within the boundaries, so if you're looking for unpredictable high jinks, this tractor is not for you. Overly aggressive, massive in production and with vehement mentality, Acranius' energy radiates. Whiteout delivers, as long as you know what to expect from it

Release: March 6th, 2026 | Blood Blast Distribution
Rating: 4 out of 5

 

Olhava - Memorial (2026) Review

I never quite ventured into Olhava's earlier works, and my introduction to the Russian atmospheric black metal duo came through the arresting artwork of 2022's Reborn, which was the reason that led me to discover their horizon-reaching interpretation of the genre. By 2024, the band had signed with Avantgarde Music and released the conceptual album Sacrifice, an album whose thematic touch appears to be further elaborated on their latest record, Memorial. 

Tracing back to Ladoga (2020), the "Ageless River" series of interlude tracks have functioned as connective tissue across the three albums, incrementally numbered throughout with Memorial advancing from X to XIII. In between these pieces, are four monumental compositions of elevated atmospheric black metal, injected with generous quantities of post-black and blackgaze sensibility, as well as ambient passages that appear frequently on the surface. The prevailing intensity of the record is of a kind more attuned to post-rock or post-metal fans, rather than to the freaks that dwell in the dungeons of black metal. Main tracks span from seven to above 20 minutes in duration, a structural approach entirely aligned with Olhava's established modus operandi, and in many aspects, cleanly mirroring Sacrifice in its presence.

"After I'm Gone" emerges perfectly from the introductory "Ageless River X" unfurling atop a bedrock of ambient and post-rock texture that demonstrates the band's contemplative nature, and the album's incandescent energy. The track gets dreamier and dreamier as it progresses through fast-paced, cyclical motifs emblematic of Olhava's identity. The 20-minute colossus "When the Ashes Grow Old" sustains the post-black metal radiance before submerging into purer heavenly ambiance in its middle part. Memorial's riverine flow of sound exhibits fluctuation only when the "Ageless River" interludes appear - the same signature sound of blackgaze psyche is strongly maintained all across the album.

At nearly 80 minutes, Memorial's length fits both the genre's and the band's scale. Compared to Sacrifice, I noticed a tiny improvement on the more balanced sound of the drums, but other than that, the album delivers a form of post-black metal strikingly similar to its predecessor, perhaps a bit too much. For adherents of Olhava's state of expression, however, there is little to resist here.

Release: February 27th, 2026 | Avantgarde Music
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Belzebong - The End Is High (2026) Review

A long time ago, I shared how back in 2009 my accidental initiation into the smoke-drenched corridors of stoner metal came courtesy of Belzebong’s first demo, soon followed by the debut full-length Sonic Scapes & Weedy Grooves (2011). That record, alongside the equally effective follow-up, Greenferno (2015), remains one of my favorite releases of the genre, even while only instrumental. For me, the absence of vocals amplified the narcotic density of the riffs, allowing groove and atmosphere to rule over everything else.

I somehow lost interest in subsequent releases by the band, never delved into Light the Dankness (2018) or the tongue-in-cheek live recording in Norway, De Mysteriis Dope Sathanas - Live in Oslo (2021), it was enough to laugh a bit though. Early material has retained a certain replay value for me, even though the overall aesthetic doesn’t stick today. With The End Is High, reconnecting with Belzebong feels seamless, not a single day has passed, and all the hallmarks are intact: vivid weedy artwork, track title wordplays a la Cannabis Corpse (and others), a wordless approach, but above all, pudgy groove-laden stoner doom.

The characteristic slow-burn build unfurls with opening track “Bong & Chain”, while “420 Horsemen” is faster in tempo and introduces buzz and abstraction into the haze. “Hempnotized” remains obsessed with hulking, middle-paced riffs, but for me the closer “Reefer Mortis” is what truly lingers, and especially the mid-section guitar lines that evoke the morbid swagger of Church of Misery, just without the serial killers. At the end of the track, you get to hear again an epic voice sample quoting the cult classic horror comedy The 'Burbs from 1989. If you know the movie, you know what scene they’ve mashed up.

Production remains polished as always, at least in the same way as it has been since Greenferno and onward. While surpassing the highs (pun intended) of their debut proves to be a tall order, The End Is High finds Belzebong committing no missteps. An enjoyable return to the studio, but leaves me wanting… Well, to listen to the first one again.

These are eyes of young girl, barely out of high school. Her name is Alice Trenton and she's been on a long, long trip……

Release: February 20th, 2026 | Heavy Psych Sounds Records
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 

Atavistic Passage - Demonstration Two (Demo, 2025) Review

Second demo of strongly similar philosophy as the first, laid out by UK black metal project Atavistic Passage, an one-man entity by the same person behind Hibernian Abyss (you may not be familiar with either, but it's high time you looked into them). Continuing the necro-sonic path paved out by the 2024 demo Demonstration One, the template is familiar - two main tracks between an intro and outro, cohesive and direct at just over fifteen minutes of lo-fi prayer.

The central pieces “Ecstatic Power” and “Physical Manifestations of Psychic Spite” scratch speakers and headphones with the abrasion of quality raw black metal, as the guitars surge on a trance of distortion, and the vocals screech atop the din with determination. It's cold and secluded, rooted in the classiest of the genre's classics, echoing skeletal chants in cavernous halls accessible only to the ears most devoted to this music.

With a handful of rudimentary harmonic shifts, the demo's simplicity is its identity. Buzzing ambient threads of the opening and closing tracks, give it a spatial depth that belies their minimal framework. Demonstration Two is sincere and epigrammatic in delivery, with a certain intrigue that justifies its existence within the raw black metal underground. Every bond is a bond to sorrow.

Rating: 3.5/5

Geheimnisvoll - Pale Triumph of the Hidden Flame (2026) Review

Now growing with the quiet assurance of a project settling into its own mythology, Geheimnisvoll's second full-length album moves with the confidence of a craftsman well into adherence to habit. 

Pale Triumph of the Hidden Flame is just over half an hour long, and offers Finnish-inspired melodicism that permeates across all its seven tracks, yet for better or for worse, rarely mutates. The production leans decisively toward clarity, especially compared to previous releases, and vocals remain steadfast in tone - melodic black metal on instinct, or rather, autopilot.

Weaknesses are difficult to pinpoint, but so are moments of ascension. Each track advances on familiar paths, always guided by an underground ethos, but there's a constant resistance to revelation, while at least also avoiding failure. Geheimnisvoll does not invest on an abrasive edge, as the album's guitar lines glide with a surprising warmth beneath the intended chill.

Aesthetically coherent, but possibly too recognizable, Pale Triumph of the Hidden Flame is pleasant enough for a melodic black metal album, but also only modestly effective. I wouldn't find a highlight moment or track even if I wanted to, but it's all enjoyable enough to leave a positive aftertaste. For fans only.

Rating: 3/5

Bronze Hall - Embers of the Dawn (2026) Review

Finnish output Bronze Hall from loses no time after their notable debut, Honor & Steel (2025), and comes out with a well-versed follow-up of heavy-inclined, epic black metal. 

A lot of influences, from Macabre Omen to Nokturnal Mortum, and of course the legendary viking metal era of Bathory, come to mind - tracks vary from three to almost ten minutes with a dusty production exemplary of the underground sound. 

Build-up are often used in the form of acoustic guitars (e.g. in the awesome opening track "Embers of Remembrance", and "In Northern Twilight"), classic dungeon synth atmospherics (e.g. on "Call of Steel"), or dimmer dark ambient (e.g. on "Ravaging Flames", which has an absolutely menacing tempo right after). 

The longest piece "Galloping in the Sunlight's Embrace" has all Bronze Hall can offer, from the dungeon synth opening texture to the amazing, middle-paced black metal melodies and the more abstract, higher-thrill ending to close the album. 

There's bits and bites of brilliance all over this record, from the shortest "Night's Black Wings" (one of my favorites, even though the least ambitious) to the guitar work on these longer compositions. I consider this an improvement on the project's debut, and a must-listen for fans of aforementioned references and artists.

Rating: 3.5/5

Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough (2009) Review

 

 Hands and knees grasping earth 

My first interaction with Krallice was right in the middle of my adolescent years and exactly at the time when my perception of black metal was taking form. Hence, looking at a band with colored contemporary art, a rounded logo and an arguably anti-frostbitten sound was a challenge to the traditionalist establishment on hold of the genre, which still didn't stop me from exploring the band when the self-titled album (2008) and Dimensional Bleedthrough (2009) were released. 

Fleshgod Apocalypse - King (2016) Review

Breathing the soul of the slain in battle

In the old forum era and during the time of Fleshgod Apocalypse’s first years of activity, it was a joke how they “put a photo of their drummer on the cover of the Mafia EP”. Word was for the incredible percussion technician Francesco Paoli and how special his contribution was to the band’s debut full length-album Oracles in 2009, as well as the EP that followed - but that wasn’t the only aspect that made them stand out. Mixing the gut-punch immediacy of technical death metal with a classical flavor, the project was an ambitious experiment in synthesis from day one. Following a trajectory defined by increasing integration of these classical textures in Agony (2011), and even more so in Labyrinth (2013), the blood-stained tuxedo gang from Italy were traversing a familiar path when King dropped in 2016. 

Whitechapel - The Valley (2019) Review

 I can't erase these memories, but I will erase humanity

Up to 2019, deathcore veterans Whitechapel from Knoxville perfected but never questioned the vocabulary that helped define the genre’s first major wave from the mid ‘00s and onward. While the band’s earlier work leaned on archetypal lyrical violence and sharpened musical blunt force, The Valley seriously shook the waters as a fundamental reorientation of their career. Explicitly autobiographical, it’s a deeply personal concept album built around the real-life childhood of vocalist Phil Bozeman, and chronicles his upbringing in Hardin Valley (Tennessee), a landscape marked by loss, mental illness and instability. Embedded in the textual architecture of the record are his father’s death when he was ten, as well as his mother’s struggle with alcoholism and schizophrenia before her overdose several years later, often drawing directly from her journals and charging the album a documentary gravity that’s a rare bird in extreme metal. The “valley” itself functions both as the literal setting of where he grew up, but also as a metaphor for the burden of emotional desolation.

Enmity - Illuminations of Vile Engorgement (2005) Review

Whoever sets on a path to discover the sickest kind of extreme music that has ever been recorded, sooner or later will come across Enmity’s debut and only album, Illuminations of Vile Engorgement. Released in 2005 through Permeated Records, the album has accrued a reputation as much for its divisive sound as for the discourse it sparks about the limits of brutal death metal, and how it forcibly melds absurdity with brutality while ignoring all expectations. The band has little interest in conventional structure, butchering the notion of accessibility by plunging headlong into a torrent of blast assaults, guttural chaos and relentless slam death noise. Forget pretty descriptions like memorable riff progressions, discernible melodies, technical prowess, as all that’s musical is sacrificed in the pit of barbarism and repulsion.  

The guitars are tuned so low and mixed so murkily; they basically blur into an amorphous, impenetrable wall of sound. Guitar lines are pounding, abrasive and unrepentant, while drums throb with literally non-stop blast beats, producing an effect so visceral and overwhelming, that you’ll probably have a physical response to it. Track titles are right up there when it comes to the ugliest brutal death metal filth, while the gurgling, intentionally grotesque guttural vocals just double down on the whole element of distortion. I would freely admit it’s impossible to tell one track from the next, yet the total of 33 minutes of this experiment, somehow needs to be listened just to see how a band reaching sounds like. It’s unclear whether Enmity did this deliberately or not, but they orchestrated the conditions for the perfect storm inside extreme metal fandom just with this one album. 

Wildly divergent reactions have been drawn over the years about Illuminations of Vile Engorgement, and the audience will never come to an agreement about it. For some, a misguided experiment that lacks quality and direction, standing as a bizarre outlier in brutal death metal that overstretched itself to complete incoherence. To others, a sonic anti-thesis, dismantling the tolerance of even the most durable listeners with its ceaseless propulsion. To me, just the vastness of different opinions is what stands out here, and how chaotic the record actually is – repetitive and uninviting. Pushing itself to such a ludicrous edge, there’s a performative audacity in Enmity’s approach that’s at least acknowledgeable. It’s not going to be in my death metal favorites any time soon, but I somehow get both why people strongly hate or strongly worship it. 

I’m not going to mention any specific track or moment, except for the outro “Severe Lacerations”, which is fully in acoustic guitars and quite virtuosic to my ears. And the only reason I’m mentioning it is to maybe confuse you even more, in case you read the vivid breakdown of the rest of the record done in the paragraphs above. In the end, Illuminations of Vile Engorgement refuses to moderate itself (except from the end), it’s polarizing and impossible to digest or be processed logically. There’s a series of works of this kind that do take the extra mile, and this clearly is one of them.