By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: Full Length Date Released:08/02/2018 |
20/04/2018
Label: Impure Sounds
The expansive, noxious sound of the album feels like it may be causing irreparable internal harm, blackening and liquefying your vital organs, but it’s too punishingly satisfying to resist another spin.
“Perverse Offerings To The Void” CD//DD//LP track listing
1. Vehemence (Through Pain Divine)2. From Chaos It Has Come
3. Vile Blasphemy
4. Bone From Dust
5. Phantom Earth
6. Void
7. Timeless Eradicator
8. Looped Depraved Spell
9. Golgothan Remains
10. Flagellation (Torrid Tongues)
The Review:
There’s a particularly haunting chapter of Alan Moore’s redefining run of Swamp Thing... which is saying a lot when there are so many unsettling themes and images in his 40 issue take on the ecological deity that it practically established a whole new set of rules for horror comics. But in this particular story (Vol. 2, issues 35 & 36) a deranged drifter, nicknamed Nukeface, continually sips on irradiated beers, oblivious to the damage it’s wreaking on his body, and the world around him. Another homeless man takes a sip and quickly decays into a puddle of goo, teeth loosening and spilling to the ground, eyes sinking into their putrefying sockets. Nukeface – though his nostrils cave in, his hair sheds in clumps, and his skin cracks and peels off in strips – keeps cackling in pleasure. He revels in his own toxic nature, as the ground beneath his feet sizzles and dies with each step. Nukeface doesn’t die at the end of the story, but continues his wretched path across the land in a joyful, poisoned delirium. As I absorbed the ten malignant tracks on Golgothan Remains debut album, I kept thinking of this singularly disturbing character – seeping venom but blissfully enduring his decay. The expansive, noxious sound of the album feels like it may be causing irreparable internal harm, blackening and liquefying your vital organs, but it’s too punishingly satisfying to resist another spin.
“Perverse Offerings To The Void”is clearly indebted to classic death metal – from the punky d-beat outro of “Vehemence” to the galloping opening riff of “Timeless Eradicator”, the Australian quartet hits all the right notes and doesn’t push too far into genre hybrid territory. They generally operate in the two extreme ends of the sonic spectrum: chugging rhythms and piercing high end leads. Vocalist Matthieu Van den Brande (a.k.a. “C”) bellows out consistently inhuman death growls, often loaded with reverb – like some beast creeping from the depths. Like many of my favorite bands, they offer up a “theme song” on their debut that is particularly frenetic, energized, and concise. “Bone from Dust”, starting with a 6/8 intro, is a sick slab of death, with consistent changeups in timing that never drops a beat. Drummer “M” does some great double kick work on “Golgothan Remains”, as well as my favorite cut, “Vile Blasphemy”. D’s bass tone is palpable when you blast the record but sometimes sits a little low in the mix.
If there is any criticism I can reserve for “Perverse Offerings…”, it’s that the production is beneath a band of this caliber. There are fadeouts that hit a bit too quickly, the aforementioned low mixing of the bass and, unfortunately, a consistent midrange murk that sometimes clouds the rhythmic changes. In a few spots, particularly when the blast beats get extra hectic and the guitars mesh into a sickening wall of death, there’s a tendency to lose clarity. I love the nasty murk of lo-fi death metal, but I was trying to hear chords and snare hits instead of enjoying the filthy tone. Thankfully, these spots are few and far between. The quality of the songwriting, and the committed fury of Golgothan Remains, shines through any rough patches, and establishes the Australian quartet and a nascent death powerhouse. Crack into their debut and enjoy your own putrefaction – if you can endure it.
“Perverse Offerings To The Void”is available here and preorder for the LP here
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