Album Review: Unfathomable Ruination – Enraged And Unbound 9.5 (Brutal Death)

Written by Carcassbomb

  • Unfathomable Ruination
  • Enraged And Unbound
  • Brutal Death Metal
  • London, UK
  • November 22, 2019
  • 9.5/10

Well this is a hit, there’s death metal for the whole family on Enraged and Unbound, the dad and uncle that still listen to The Big 4 and Morbid Angel, the the older son who likes it a bit more technical, and the youngest of the children becka with the Disentomb tee who likes it fucking dank and filthy. It has guest vocals by death metal growlers Julien Truchan from Benighted and Sven de Caluwé from Aborted. The album art is a work made by the incredible Eliran Kantor. This album is like the heisenberg recipe of pure death metal and it comes out November 22nd on Willowtip Records

Artwork by Eliran Kantor

Unfathomable Ruination stands out in the current death metal climate, there’s tracks where you can tell that they’ve really spent the time to consider what they can do with their instruments. I can feel the push – it makes me feel sweaty and a little uneasy. Timing will change at bullshit speeds with oddly timed riffs and pauses that you’d more commonly hear on a mathcore record. Speaking of sweaty here’s a neat bit of info pulled from Metal-Archives: “In 2014, the band performed on the sidewalk of downtown London while locked in an airtight box as a part of an art exhibit called “Sculpture in the City”. The goal of the stunt was to have the band play and then released as their air supply ran low.”

So it seems they’ve been fairly interesting for the last decade and I’ve only just noticed them this year. Now I absolutely have to back and listen to the rest of their discography to see how their sound arrived at this point. It feels very finely crafted by seasoned musicians while also still fresh whereas other bands often plateau by this point. Get the physical copies while you can because this one will be social media fodder on those vinyl shares.

Unfathomable Ruination: Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook / Instagram

The mixing and mastering is by Neil Kernon (Cannibal Corpse, Nile, Deicide) and Alan Douches (Death, Mastodon, Hate Eternal). It very much sounds like it could be an album from a lot of these bands. The production quality here really encapsulates the old school sound without restricting it so it feels seamless when more modern elements are used. It’s a busy record and they did well to make sure everything was as punchy as it could be. The band really did go all out with this record and are gunning for that top spot.

Vocally it’s consistently powerful and top notch throughout, with or without the guest vocals, both of which were great but what I’m getting at is Ben Wright from Unfathomable Ruination is absolutely comparable to any of the current death metal titans in terms of ability and brutality. I loved the guest vocals from Sven on “Occulta Violentiam” as they brought a bit of a higher register than most of the album so it was a nice treat to reinvigorate the energy towards the end.

November 22nd Enraged And Unbound releases, reviewers are going to have a panic attack as they’re trying to get their end of year lists but the year refuses to end until the very last day of the calendar. Unfathomable Ruination will not disappoint. 

9.5/10


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