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ADVERSARIAL / ANTEDILUVIAN  Initiated In Impiety As Mysteries  LP   (Nuclear War Now! Productions)   19.99
Initiated In Impiety As Mysteries IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR ORDER

Two of the most warped modern death metal acts team up for this split LP, each band delivering three new tracks of their deformed bestial DM. The two bands come from a similar place (influenced by the cruel discordance and sludgy chaos of prime Incantation and Immolation) and compliment the other nicely, though the approaches are distinctly their own.

Side "Leviathan" begins with a chilling din of roaring arctic winds and distant air raid sirens, a swirling, apocalyptic black fog of sound that leads into the regimented deathblast of Adversarial's "Swirling Chaos That Swallows Horizons". This is bestial blackened death metal to the core, crushing riffing and ultra-guttural belching riddled with violent machinegun blast beats. From there, the band starts to whip out spiky discordant riffs and bizarre dissonant shredding that puts off whiffs of both Voivod and Obscura-era Gorguts without straying from the blasting monstrous death metal. "Into The Waning Of Twilight's Death Ocean" is loaded with these caustic riffs and atonal leads, gasping, gaseous beast-roars drifting over the warped chords and inverted arpeggios, the speed rarely dropping below blast-level tempos. The harshest and most deformed riffing, though, is saved for "Spiraling Towards The Ultimate End", with howling atonal sounds coming out of the guitars that would send most No Wave outfits running for cover.

The three songs from Antediluvian are even more mutated. As with their amazing Through The Cervix Of Hawwah, these songs crawl through a toxic black muck made up of Incantation's DNA but emerge as something quite unique, an often formless, thoroughly avant-garde take on cavernous doom-laden death metal. The wailing discordant leads that come screaming across the murky blast of "Force Of Suns Of Adversary" obscures some even weirder noise and fret board-mangling hidden in the grinding amorphous heaviness, and "Dissolution Spires" slips in and out of shambling doom from the almost Portal-esque swirl of blackened chaos, with the bass guitar leading the song as strange slide-guitar sounds melt and bend over the fractured blast beats. An eerie minor key melody starts off "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (I Am That I Am)", but it quickly evolves into a funeral dirge erupting with short blasts of grinding barbarism. This band rules, and these newer tracks further demonstrate why they've quickly grown into one of my favorite current DM outfits.

Highly recommended to fans of alien, avant-garde death metal. The record includes a large glossy poster and lyric sheet, and comes on black vinyl.