We almost never copy/paste what labels and PR agents write about the music they’re promoting. Not because they’re never right, but because we prefer to reach our own conclusions and express it in our own words, even when we’re enthusiastic enough about what we hear to host premieres. But sometimes, the word-smithing we receive is so glorious that it’s hard to resist. In the case of Sentient Ruin‘s come-on for the forthcoming debut album of Portland’s Disimperium, it’s gloriously horrifying:
As the debut 2021 7″ “Malefic Obliteration” had already hinted at, human ears will fall prey yet again to an entity whose quest for total sensorial destruction has now reached implausible and horrific extremes, far beyond the confines of sanity which had already been obliterated on the inaugural release. In its nine tracks and thirty two minutes of pure concentrated terror, “Grand Insurgence Upon Despotic Altars” discharges an inescapable payload of death that impacts the listener with the force and speed of an apocalyptic shockwave escaping the fireball of a nuclear warhead.
And there’s more where that came from, such as this: “Where bands like Diocletian, Impetuous Ritual, Tetragrammacide, Knelt Rote and Damaar had already tested and established the limits of human resistance against abstract ideas of omnipotent negativity and horizonless sonic bedlam, Disimperium explore these outer limits even further, venturing out and establishing a new era into which there is no more measure to the very definition of musical insanity sought and achieved for the sole sake of aggression”.
That’s all vividly evocative enough that you’ve probably already got a good idea of what you’re about to experience in the album track we’re premiering today, but we’ve got to justify our own existence, don’t we? So here goes….
In its atmosphere and impact, “Blade Obfuscation” is exactly as advertised — mauling, mangling, mad, and monstrously malignant. Hideous roars and screams reverberate off of crypt walls (and the inside of your skull). The drumming thunders and batters in an unhinged fury, combined with bass tones that sound like rolling subterranean detonations. The corrosive riffing creates a viscous swarm of feeding-frenzy lunacy, accented by shrill berserker soloing. It feels like a musical hell-beast that’s consuming the listener from flesh through bone as if the beast is insanely ravenous and working under a very imminent deadline.
Near the end there’s a slight relent in the torrential violence, when the drums briefly vanish, the bass murmurs and moans, and the guitars sizzle, more like toxic radiation than agents of evisceration and consumption. But you’d best catch an uneasy breath while you can, because the hell beast returns quickly.
Sonic bedlam indeed, and thoroughly exhilarating from start to finish.
Sentient Ruin is giving Grand Insurgence Upon Despotic Altars a lavish release, presenting it in LP, MC, CD, and digital formats. It’s set for release on July 21st, and pre-orders are being accepted now:
PRE-ORDER:
https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/grand-insurgence-upon-despotic-altars
http://sentientruin.com/releases
NEW BAND AND LABEL MERCH SHOPS AVAILABLE HERE:
► http://sentientruin.com/band-merch
► http://sentientruin.com/merch
► SEASON OF MIST USA: https://shopusa.season-of-mist.com/label/sentient-ruin?cat=6&limit=60
► SEASON OF MIST EU: https://shop.season-of-mist.com/label/sentient-ruin?cat=6&limit=60
DISIMPERIUM:
https://www.facebook.com/disimperium
https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/malefic-obliteration