The Polish death metal band CINIS has had a long career, with a 20th anniversary coming up next year, but they’ve not filled those decades with plentiful releases. A demo began their recorded output in 2005, but three years passed between then and their first album, The Last Days of Ouroboros, and six more years elapsed before the second one arrived, 2014’s Subterranean Antiquity. Even that significant interval was exceeded by the time that has trudged by before a third full-length was completed and scheduled for release, but at last it’s almost here.
Lies That Comfort Me is the name of the new one, and September 23rd is the date on which it will be discharged by the excellent Polish label Selfmadegod Records. Nine tracks long, it proclaims an unyielding homage to such formidable trans-Atlantic forerunners as Morbid Angel, Deicide, and Cannibal Corpse, while also linking arms with the stylistic influences of CINIS countrymen Vader and Decapitated.
You could say it’s a way of proclaiming that certain old schools of death metal are undying, and still live in the hearts of veterans such as these four. But fear not, Lies That Comfort Me isn’t some uninspired nostalgia trip, but a full-bore juggernaut fueled by fire and fury, with the kind of riff mastery that proves to be highly addictive, a rhythm section that knows how to groove hard, and enough changing facets to keep listeners on the edge of their seats throughout the whole thrill-ride.
Witness the song we’re presenting today — an electrifying rush named “Aegis“.
The band’s lyricist has explained that the song is about “a toxic relationship,” one in which “one side is always right”: “He/She expects respect in return for… resigning from your independence, your whole life. A relationship with a psychopath who takes everything from you – a relationship that cannot be escaped.”
In the music itself, the song is a fast-paced but jolting barrage of maniacally slugging riffs, hyper-speed drum blasting, and bestial, belly-deep growls. Sounds of sadistic viciousness also well up in hornet-swarm chords, and delirium reigns in outbursts of squirming and darting fretwork, capped by a sinister, slithering solo.
The momentum is on the attack straight through, but changing accents also come fast and furious, thanks to thunderous drum progressions, bunker-busting detonations, and turbulent bass upheavals. All the riffs quickly get their hooks in your head, but the one that sticks hardest is a braying and jabbing sensation that takes over about 3 1/2 minutes in, and just hammers itself deeper and deeper into the skull over the track’s remaining time.
Lies That Comfort Me was engineered by Lukasz Bielemuk, and then mixed and mastered at Hertz Studio (Behemoth, Vader, Trauma, Decapitated). The album is completed with artwork and layout by Tomasz “Hal” Halicki (Vader, Dead Infection) and photography by Ewa Bielemuk. Selfmadegod will release it on CD and digital formats, and it’s up for p[re-order now.
Lest you think “Aegis” is an outlier, we’re also including a video for the album’s first single, “Witness” — an experience in madness and mayhem that proves to be both explosive and harrowing, driven to its zenith by a fire-breathing solo and accented by spine-fracturing rhythms and start-stop episodes of skull-busting brutality.
PRE-ORDER:
http://www.selfmadegod-store.com/cinis
https://selfmadegod.bandcamp.com/album/lies-that-comfort-me
CINIS:
https://www.facebook.com/cinisofficial
https://cinis.bandcamp.com/