We’re staring the final two months of this cursed year right in its yellowed, disgusting eyes, and it won’t be too soon when we can leave 2023 in our rearview, never to visit these days ever again. I can’t be the only one who’s had a miserable time during this calendar year, and while I don’t buy into the dawn of January changing anyone’s fortunes, it’ll still be a relief to toss these 365 days into the trash.

Yet, 20 Buck Spin did have one more trick up their sleeves, that being “Starpath,” a split release from Dream Unending and Worm, two of the most intriguing bands on their roster that take death metal into strange new circles. This five-track, 45-minute collection is hardly these two bands dumping a few songs into your lap on the way to their next full-lengths. These are meaty, deadly pieces that feature Dream Unending’s jazzy, dreamier creations along with Worm’s cosmic, brain-freezing demons that drill deep into your psyche. So, yeah, this diseased year at least is getting an exciting surprise at the tail end, and these songs are so powerful and twisting that it’ll make the late autumn and early winter that much more miasmal.    

“So Many Chances” is the 12:05-long opener for Dream Unending, and if you’re well versed in their musical universe, you’ll be right at doomy blissful home. Growls gush as the music takes you to another dimension, lush and crumbling, your slumber feeling like a strange passage into space. A liquidy, jazzy section numbs the senses as roars wrench, guitars bubble, and we sweep into the last part of the journey. Classic acoustics cut through, a classy, hazy push that makes your mind tremble, strange daydreams rush, and you’re fully immersed in a reality altogether new. “If Not Now When” runs 10:55 and lets guitars cut right down the center, growls wrenching, doomy punchiness heading into a thick gloom. The leads stretch into the beyond, the growls get grittier, and clean streams wash over you, chilling flesh and paving the way for fiery leads to melt everything. Guitars bend as your brain gets mushier, gentle warmth slithers and ices wounds, and sounds rise and zap out into time.

Worm starts off with “Ravenblood,” a mystical helping of death metal that travels through spooky terrain before muscles are shorn. Guitars open as the track gets more menacing, the growls gut, and synth laps, increasing the intergalactic wonder, turning up the humidity. Warm leads lather as the playing reaches out toward the stars and in the direction of “Midwinter Tears” that is fantastical and blazing. Growls lurch as coldness drips, eerie strangeness spreads evil wings, and the melodies make extremities tingle as detached voices encircle in the clouds. Dazzling guitars open and bubble over, taking a turn toward the mysterious and into closer “Sea of Sorrow” that laps like foamy waves onto a blackened shore. Howls gush as a feverish temperature arrives, guitars sweeping through the stars, grimness smearing its blood in gasping mouths. As the pace builds, the power unloads, tricky playing making your head spin, the guitars freezing your cells, swimming into mysterious wormholes into other dimensions.

What an ideal way to cap a huge year for 20 Buck Spin with these two inventive and progressive bands that offer something different from each other on “Starpath” but that work perfectly as a whole. Dream Unending’s mesmerizing journey through psychosis and Worm’s wintry strangeness that feels like a medicine head dream sound incredible as usual, and each band is pushing the possibilities of what they can do right before us. This split is a real year-end treat for listeners who have had a metallic bounty so far and who can fall over into the bounty of one more death metal harvest.

For more on the band, go here: https://www.instagram.com/thedreamisunending/

And here: https://www.instagram.com/wormgloom/

To buy the album, go here: https://www.20buckspin.com/starpath

For more on the label, go here: https://www.20buckspin.com/