THE SYNN REPORT (PART 179): RELICS OF HUMANITY

Recommended for fans of: Devourment, Disentomb, Disgorge

It’s somewhat crazy to think that we’re now on the 179th edition of The Synn Report.

That’s 179 different bands (actually it’s probably slightly more) I’ve dived into since starting to write here, with the first edition – not counting the unofficial “part zero” which was written by Islander following an early recommendation of mine – being published in January of 2011.

Of course, looking back, my initial intention to do these reports weekly seems hopeless naïve – I managed it for a while, but once I became a permanent fixture here I had to scale them back to monthly – but the purpose behind them, to write up and recommend a band’s entire back-catalogue, rather than just their latest release, is one thing which hasn’t changed.

And so, to kick off the 2025 season, today we’re going to be getting truly, utterly, and unforgivingly brutal with the Belarussian blast ‘n’ bludgeon of Relics of Humanity (whose long-gestating third album releases today).

2012 – GUIDED BY THE SOULLESS CALL

Opening with the sound of damned souls in torment, it’s not long before monstrous opener “Melting of the Forsaken Millions” slams (and I do mean slams) into top gear, all bone-rattling blastbeats and gut-churning guitars, topped off with a fittingly gruesome, reverb-drenched vocal performance.

But while it’s quickly made clear that Relics of Humanity have bulled their way into a crowded field – with the likes of Disgorge, Dying Fetus, and Defeated Sanity (and many more) having already set out the blueprint, and lain down the gauntlet, for their brutal brethren to follow – you just as quickly get the sense of what makes RoH stand out from the crowd a little… namely the fact that they’re not just brutally heavy (which they most certainly are) but they’re also subtly hooky (as the crawling climax of “Melting…” defiantly demonstrates).

“Stench of Burning Heavens”, for example, marries finger-flensing riffs to an ungodly sense of groove that’s so deep and dark it might as well be measured on the Richter scale, while both “…Of Mutilated Truth” and “Immortally Dethroned” might initially sound like the band are actively assaulting and abusing their instruments but also manage to conjure up some moments of pure headbangable heaviness as well (the latter in particular is one of the record’s major highlights, especially during its colossally crushing second half).

Sure, Relics of Humanity aren’t painting outside the lines here – even the more “atmospheric” touches, like “Unleashing the Ungodly” fit pretty neatly into the established Brutal Death Metal design – but for this band it’s clearly all about the execution… and execute they most certainly do during tracks like the relentless “Infinite Reign of Cosmos” and the even more merciless (yet also disturbingly groovy) “Pray for Obscurity”.

And while brevity may be “the soul of wit”, it’s also a key element of this album’s success, with the whole thing blazing towards its ominous, brooding climax over the course of just under twenty-seven torrid, torturous minutes, which – especially since it saves two of its heftiest, most gravity-distorting tracks (“Deprived of Sacred Blindness” and “Fusion of Parallel Forms”) right until the end – will simultaneously leave you both sated by its savagery yet still hungry for more.

2014 – OMINOUSLY REIGNING UPON THE INTANGIBLE

Somehow even more aggressive and horrible than their debut, the band’s second album (the remastered version of which you can stream below) immediately sets about mauling and macerating your musical tastebuds with its strafing snare blasts and chattering, belt-fed, high calibre riffage.

And yet there’s also, unless my ears deceive me, a touch more dark melody (especially in the back half of the song) which definitely helps justify the band’s self-proclaimed tag of being “Death Metal in its darkest and heaviest form” – something which the even more abusive, and abrasive strains of “Deconsecrating the Almighty” (which in places recalls the gut-wrenching chug and churn of Misery-era Disentomb) only further reinforce.

Vocally this one also plumbs new lows for the band with the abyssal gutturals of “There Is No Salvation in Divine Eyes” (courtesy of the group’s suitably vile new vocalist) hitting similarly devastating depths as those you tend to find on an Artificial Brain album (though the slow-motion slam and slither of the song’s second half is far more suffocating, and Suffocation-esque, in nature).

“Dimension of Hatred” is both a clear highlight and one of the heaviest tracks on the album (some might say those two things are connected) and features some of the nastiest, gnarliest riffage and most catchily contorted rhythms of the band’s career thus far, while – after a short but necessary interlude in the form of “Amongst the Burning Souls” – the subsequent “Through the Worlds of Chaos Concentration” proceeds to push things even further, seeming to get heavier and heavier with each passing moment as it builds towards its disgustingly doomy, Devourment-inspired finale.

The re-recording of “Immortally Dethroned” is just as good as the original, in my opinion (which one you prefer will probably be determined most by how much you love the devastating depth-charge drops in the new version), but it’s the fresher (though equally fetid) touches found on both the lurching lacerating “Procession of Suffering” and cataclysmic closer “Paralyzing the Light” – with the band introducing an extra dose of dissonance and, especially on the latter track, a touch of bleak, almost blackened, anti-melody – which promise that the best is yet to come for Relics of Humanity.

2025 – ABSOLUTE DISMAL DOMAIN

It’s always tempting, maybe too tempting, to declare any band’s big “comeback” album to be “the best thing they’ve ever done”… but I’ll be damned if that’s not the case with Absolute Dismal Domain (out now).

Yes, it’s been eleven years since their last album (and six years since the interim Obscuration EP) and, yes, the band’s line-up has changed once again, but it doesn’t take long for their third album to reveal that not only have Relics of Humanity not lost a step, they’ve also learned a few new tricks as well.

Not only are the guitars (and thick, booming bass) fatter and filthier than ever (while still possessing a strange sort of ignorantly intense technicality) but the songwriting has gotten even smarter – and even darker – with every twisting, turning transition between blast and bludgeon, slam and groove, being employed that little bit more carefully so as to ensure maximum impact and lethality.

Take the back-breaking stagger and surge of “Summoning of Those Who Absorbed”, which highlights just how disgustingly heavy the band have become simply by slowing things down just that little bit more – while also incorporating the band’s more atmospheric side into the core of their sound even more – with the sludgy, slamming grooves and tangled, tendonitis-inducing bass-lines of “Taking the Shape of Infinity” doubling down even more on the band’s renewed focus on monolithic, mesmerising sonic weight.

The heaving, hammering assault of “In the Name of Ubiquitous Gloom” and the barbaric bombardment of “Paralyzing the Light II” sit somewhere between the doom-laden devastation of latter-day Disentomb and the monstrous intensity of Cannibal Corpse at their harshest and heaviest (the latter in particular, as one of the album’s stand-out tracks, weaves in some inhumanly infectious pseudo-melody amongst its charred, dismally distorted riffs and stabbing, splintered drums).

The titanic title-track – three morbid minutes of sluggish, suffocating weight and chilling, choking atmospherics combined with vomitous expulsions of bile-soaked vocals and visceral explosions of blistering fury –  serves as a perfect example of how the band’s evolution has made them even heavier, darker, and, most importantly, better than ever, after which the crushingly catchy “Smoldering of Seraphim” and the utterly apocalyptic “His Creation That No Longer Exists” (whose grim, gargantuan grooves threaten to collapse under their own weight) bring things to a close… with only the sinister soundscapes of “Dominion” left to haunt the aftermath.