Almost four years ago we premiered Expanse of Hellish Black Mire, the debut EP of a Cleveland-based death metal band named Noxis. In an accompanying review, I attempted to sum up the music by saying that it was “thuggish in its bone-fracturing, organ-rupturing belligerence and disgustingly gruesome in its atmosphere, and yet also mind-boggling in its mad contortions and technical extravagances. Their music is thus thoroughly putrid and punishing but also a big adrenaline kick”.
Having experienced that EP, I wasn’t completely shocked by what Noxis have accomplished on their debut album Violence Inherent In The System, which we’re premiering today in advance of its June 28 release, but it still leaps beyond what Noxis achieved on that very impressive EP. And for those of you who might be encountering Noxis for the first time, you’re in for an enormous surprise, a surprise of genuinely explosive proportions.
Noxis open the album with a savage but also bamboozling onslaught. “Skullcrushing Defilement” is well-named, because in that opener Noxis do deliver a malicious battering and also introduce listeners to the degrading foulness of some of their guitar tones and the demented clanging of their bass.
But it also doesn’t take long to realize that the ambitions of Noxis extend beyond the vomiting of gross death metal. There’s a crazed level of inventiveness and unpredictability in the frantically writhing and darting fretwork and the unforeseen bursts of bass soloing. The warped tones rapidly squirm and skitter, brazenly blare and shriek, and leap about like some highly accelerated alien species in the midst of a feeding frenzy.
Meanwhile the drums clatter at an equally eye-popping rate of speed, like popcorn reaching peak heat, but also manage to help keep the song on track. Fittingly, the vocals are both furious and disgusting, expelling the words in a mix of gruesome guttural barks, domineering roars, wild howls, and (at the end) an excretion of vomitous gurgling.
Just that one song also proves that not only is the music of Noxis murderous and macabre, it’s also infectious, despite (or probably because of) how twisted it is.
All these facets of the music become hallmarks, over and over again, through the next 9 songs that make up the album (there’s an extra bonus track on the album’s physical editions, but we’ll get to that one in due course). The tempos change on a dime, and so do the wild fretwork escapades, staying in one place only long enough to get perversely rooted in your head and then jumping on to something else.
Sudden stops and starts will rock you back on your heels and then head-butt you. The guitars might be going mad, but the drums might then be steady — and vice-versa. Suddenly, the band might bring in a chugging groove, only to flip the switch into a violent convulsion. The bass might be growling in the low end, like something rabidly chewing through iron, but then jump up and prove that it’s a nimble creature too.
And just when you think you might be figuring out the band’s brutal but bizarre modus operandi, they throw in “Abstemious, Pious Writ of Life“, which opens with whistling winds, a moody but mesmerizing swirl of notes, and what sounds almost like a Caribbean marimba rhythm, all of that being a prelude to a jaw-dropping display of avant-prog (for want of a better term), the kind of remarkably intricate and technically top-shelf adventure that might conjure connections to prime Cynic, Atheist, Demilich, or Gorguts.
That song marks something of a turning point in the album, as the band venture further down their own strange rabbit hole(s), seemingly in an effort to get as close as they can to their own technical ceiling, exuberantly indulging their interests in complexity and surprise, and simultaneously creating a mental whirligig for listeners.
Among the surprises is the glistening, dreamlike melody that occupies most of the instrumental track “Excursion” (which then becomes kind of frightening). Another is the solo in “Horns Echo over Chorazim“, which does sound sort of like a warped trumpet. Others include the heart-aching misery that rings from the guitar in the midst of the title song, the hallucinatory finale of “Tense and Forlorn“, and something that sounds like a cross between a xylophone and a mellotron in the back half of “Emanations of the Sick“.
Another big surprise is that bonus song, “Surfin’ Blood Futile“, which is like a gleeful carnival ride, or a wild whirling dance, but of course with its own violent convulsions and ravenous roars in the mix.
For sure, the songs are often violent, ugly, and abusive to tender ears. Sometimes the music sounds like a demolition machine at work, sometimes like a brutish hulking beast, and the vocals are a non-stop horror-show. But you’ll never mistake this music for “primitive caveman death metal”.
Instead, it’s one head-spinning and often jubilant thrill-ride after another, and you hang on for dear life waiting to see what they’re going to do next. And while there’s ugliness in the music, the production found a sweet spot that equally allows listeners to detect every boisterous and madcap thing that’s happening.
It’s not hyperbolic in the least to say that on this album there is never a dull moment. See for yourselves:
Ray Conde – Vocals
Dylan Cruz – Guitars and Vocals
David Kirsch – Bass
Joe Lowrie – Drums
Violence Inherent In The System will be released via Rotted Life (US) and Dawnbreed Records (Europe), and it’s available on vinyl LP, cassette tape, CD, and digital formats. They recommend it for fans of: Demigod, early Cryptopsy, and Demilich.
PRE-ORDER:
https://rottedlife.bandcamp.com/album/violence-inherent-in-the-system
https://www.dawnbreed.com/nl/index.php?route=product/search&search=Noxis
https://noxisdeathmetal.bandcamp.com/album/violence-inherent-in-the-system
NOXIS:
https://noxisdeathmetal.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Noxisdeathmetal/
https://www.instagram.com/noxisdeathmetal/
ROTTED LIFE RECORDS:
https://www.instagram.com/rottedliferecords/
https://www.facebook.com/rottedlife/
DAWNBREED RECORDS:
https://dawnbreedrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/dawnbreedrecords