Written by Carcassbomb
- Disentomb
- The Decaying Light
- Death/Grindcore
- Australia
- 2019
- 9/10
I was surprised by the opener to be honest, I was expecting some pretty standard death with an emphasis on being as “hard af”. There’s quite a bit of motion and emotion to this introduction, leading into some down-tuned guttural grind with often complex and excited guitars. The aggression feels genuine and sometimes even wounded. My exposure to Disentomb is entirely live and local from some time ago, so I’ll have to go back and check out previous releases. This easily stands up to a lot of the work of Full Of Hell or Unique Leader label-mates Ingested, which seem to be the death grind kings at the moment.
There’s a lot of pacing and bass popping that brings me back to Bloodthirst era Cannibal Corpse but with more of a modern -core sound. The core aspects are not an issue here because the vocals are so deep that he could pretty much choose any style and it’s going to sound like uncompromising brutality. THE BASS THOUGH, that tone, love it. “Undying Dysphoria” is the highlight for me, it’s just got a lot of interesting moments and aspects. The mixing presents things in a very wild and tangled way like a spinning bullet. Especially when the blast beat double kick is just sitting there under these jumping and skipping guitars and bass. It’s a fucking pleasure. A very cohesive unit. It’s hard to stay focused on one thing because it all compliments or accentuates something else and it moves really fucking fast.
Album artwork is by Nick Keller who I highly recommend checking out, he has a very distinct style that feels very symbolic. After listening to this album I can definitely say that this piece accompanies it well, it’s dark, consuming and oddly mystical. There also appears to be visual representations of some of the ideas expressed through track titles and lyrics. The more you study it the more uncomfortable it makes you. Great stuff!
There’s definitely something here that really makes this album standout. The levels of low being hit across the board, make any kind of mid work feel like high work in comparison. I think they might have turned things down that you’re not even supposed to turn down? I don’t know what’s going on to be honest. It’s awesome. Sometimes there’s these post production or mic effects where a mid vocal will kind of trail off like it’s being sucked out of airlock. Even towards the end of the album it doesn’t let up but it also doesn’t get old. Where most bands tend to wear me out by 30 minutes (and indeed many bands choose not to go far beyond this). Disentomb however, come with 45 minutes of just insanity. Probably one of the strongest heavy releases to come out this year.
The musicianship here is just fucked, it’s like these guys just sit around all the time with their guitars, even unplugged – like Australia’s Dethklok or something, although this record ends with an instrumental with “grandpa’s guitars”. This is the main reason they can survive a longer form, the placement, progression and playing (The three P’s) of the music seems to be arranged for maximized prolonged impact (MPI). These are things I’m making up to describe something really fresh.
Just get on it.
I’ve given this only a partial listen, perhaps not the full attention it deserves as it didn’t grab me asuch as perhaps your review would suggest it should.
That’s fair enough, won’t hit everyone equal. It had that old school tinge to a lot of it that I repeatedly enjoy on this site. Like Retrogore by Aborted and Necrophagist. Its probably not as abrasive as the initial examples I gave of FOH and Ingested, it’s more playful and musical to me.