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
