(Ryan Dyer, who made his NCS debut touting the insanity of one-man bands in China and followed that by trumpeting the destructiveness of Calgary’s Whorrify, now returns to the Chinese scene with this new review.)
Guangzhou, China’s Horror of Pestilence are a group of metallic conductors who specialize in creating tech-deathcore savagery blended with symphonic elements, taking the genre beyond its preconceived limitations. Their new EP Illiterate Construction // Inaudible Deterioration marks a pivot for the band, as a new guitarist from Hong Kong-based Massacre of Mothman has recently joined up for further collaborations on their next full-length LP.
Still, there are some Dune-sized ear worms found on this EP such as Middle Eastern elements leading into the snarling “Exiled Revenant.” A tasty saxophone solo also shows up, bringing to mind the brass attack used by Japanese black metal masters Sigh. “God Given. Hell Risen” features some ear-catching dual vocal melodies – another surprise from the plague ragers.
The trend these days has been to leave the last few tracks as instrumental versions of the previous songs and this continues on the EP. The bands who have been doing this, including Human Instrumentality Project, also from Guangzhou, and Beyond Cure from Taiwan, obviously feel that their compositions are strong enough on their own to warrant their own tracks without the assistance of harsh vocals. With Horror of Pestilence, their at-times classical music infused technical deathcore certainly does stand strong on its own, so the tracks are welcomed.
Their previous work, Calling to the King Of Black, featured a nightmarish painting by artist Guang Yang, though for this go-around the album artwork, designed by Kiryu, depicts a monolithic entity which looks like it came out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If the apes in that film are listening to basic deathcore, then you could assume the star child has Horror of Pestilence on its listening device.
https://open.spotify.com/album/076hxKsz96vvYrMdYMcxJQ
https://horrorofpestilence.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/hopmetal