Over death metal’s more than three decades of miserable existence, it’s gone through more changes and shifts than most metallic subgenres. From the early days in the gutters and swamps to the technical explosions to the progressive flex into mind-altering territories, there are so many ways to play death metal that the possibilities are limitless.

When it comes to Oregon death metal crushers Petrification, they have their boots entrenched deeply in the mud and bloodied roots of the early days. On their beastly second record “Sever Sacred Light,” the band—vocalist Jason Barnett, guitarists WarVest and David Pruitt, bassist Nukes, drummer Mario Thunder—digs deep into the most brutal and punishing territories imaginable, feeling like the proper band to pick up the war hammer Bolt Thrower left behind. On these eight tracks, you’re put to the test, squeezed for all the life you have left in you, your face bloodied from the assault. Yet, it’s a satisfying ache, one that scratches an itch you didn’t know you had until you heard this record.

“Twisted Visions of Creation” opens cold and twisted, guitars burning, Barnett’s brawny growls cracking through chest cavities, reminding a lot of Karl Willetts. The pace is punishing and constantly re-engages, dragging you face-first through the dirt. “Oneiric Obscurum” brings boiling guitars that simmer in doomy death, decimating with gigantic riffs and rumbling bass. The lower end of this track is muscular as hell, chugging and destroying, ending abruptly. “Temporal Entrapment” smashes and batters, throaty howls laying waste, the playing tearing you apart limb from limb. The pace then spatters, roaring with speed until the pace pulls back and ends in mystical fog. “Cadaverous Delirium” simmers in blood as strange speaking chills, hypnotic gasses turning into a burst of chaos. The playing crushes and batters, howls scar, and then the guitars go off the edge, the menace thickening, hammering away at prone bodies until only goo and ground flesh remain.

“Sepulchral Lesions” runs at a slower pace, but it’s no less heavy as the bruising sets in deep, doomy leads swagger, and the power is sinewy. The growls add pressure as the playing lathers in balmy madness, coming back with a final burst that’s sooty and devastating. “Seething Cosmological Dread” is ashen and jolting, blood blazing the walls, a ruthless, savage attack that goes for the throat. The guitars layer as the muscular texture thickens and rises, going for broke as the pace stampedes, ending in vicious horror. “Transmissions of the Unseen” opens with synth heat spiraling, the leads snaking and exploding, destroying everything in its wake. “Evil will prevail! It exists within!” Barnett howls as the pace pulls back and forth, the guitars smoke, and everything slithers into hell. Closer “The Hourglass Dissolves” opens with gruff howls, decimating terror, and soaring guitars that char flesh. The force is ominous, the guitars glazing and intoxicating, exploding with planetary pull, blinding and echoing, tearing off into oblivion.

“Sever Sacred Light” feels like a record that could have landed in 1994 and been right at home, yet here we are 30 years later, and it fans the flames of old-school death metal that’s come to the forefront. But this isn’t worship music; it’s a slab of the good stuff that Petrification mine and make as deadly as possible. This is massive and mangling, a death metal attack that puts meat on your bones and terror in your heart.

For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/petrificationdm/

To buy the album, go here: https://www.svartrecords.com/en/product/petrification-sever-sacred-light/11973

For more on the label, go here: https://www.svartrecords.com/en