(Andy Synn keeps his review streak going with a another killer Death Metal album that just came out)
Death Metal, as we all know, is a global phenomenon these days.
And, if that wasn’t already obvious, our travels this week have taken us first to Scandinavia then to South America and now to Southern Europe where we’re about to discover what delights the debut album from Italian hellions Continuum of Xul (featuring both current and former members of Ad Nauseum, Defacement, and Antropofagus) has to offer.
Voratore, in a nutshell, hits that same sweet spot between Technical, Brutal, and Dissonant – and, on occasion, subtly Progressive – Death Metal which the likes of Decapitated (in their early years, at least), Deeds of Flesh, and (to choose a more up-to-date example) Atræ Bilis have also been pummelling away at during their careers.
At its best – whether that’s the cruelly contorted riffs and devilishly distorted hooks of “180 – N.O.X. Formulae” or the blisteringly fast, blast-driven “Hellspawn In Aeternum” (two of the album’s early highlights) – it’s a lethally streamlined hybrid of twitchy, technical guitar work and vicious, high-velocity tremolo runs, backed up by some clanking, clattering bass-lines and one seriously intense (and seriously impressive) percussive performance courtesy of Marco Dal Pastro.
And while they’re not necessarily reinventing the wheel just yet – though there are moments, particularly in the second half of the record (which I’ll say more about in a second), that tease something a little more exotically ambitious – their ability to put the pedal to the proverbial (and literal) metal, while also jinking and jagging around every cunning curve and sudden switch-back in their songwriting, ensures that Continuum of Xul still manage to make a big impression here.
It is, however, those moments where they start to test the boundaries a little – take, for example, the ominous occult atmospherics underlying the Morbid Angel-esque mid-album highlight “The Dark Star”, the almost Mithras-like use of warped melody and weird ambience which permeates “Conjuration Through Obscurity”, or the uncanny aurora flickering around the edges of the epic outro of “Yawning Void Of Naxyr” – which suggest that Continuum of Xul might have even more to offer than what currently meets the eye (or ear).
So, yes, while there’s no question at all that this is a strong debut (and by “debut” I’m referring to that fact that this is their first full-length album) it seems to me that there’s still a lot of untapped creative potential yet to be mined here, and if they can do that – and still keep things as similarly free of excess fat and filler (even with the inclusion of synth-heavy, scene-setting intro “Kadhoth” Voratore clocks in at a crisp 39 minutes) – then whatever they do next might end up as a true world-beater (or a world-ender).