If the weather reflected how our society is feeling at this moment, the sun never would rise, thick black clouds would blanket the skies, and oxygen would be a burden to breathe into our lungs. I say this as it’s later in the spring with summer on the cusp, and never have things felt more bleak.
Death metal power Ossuary creates music that feel like that atmospheric heel turn, where everything is choking on soot, and misery is as plentiful as water. On the band’s suffocating debut record “Abhorrent Worship,” its members—vocalist/guitarist I, bassist M, drummer N—respond with metallic fury that feels like the earth opening up and gaining revenge on its inhabitants. At 6 tracks and 37 minutes, this offering is blunt, ashen, and devastating, an album that matches the time in which it’s released when hope is a fossil in the ground, and only tumult and violence seem to be in our future.
“Volitional Entropy” opens the record pulsating with power, the heat rising as the guitars take their first swings, howls retching with bile. The playing pummels and sickens, the leads battering as the intensity spikes, every element suffocating and crushing until it disappears into a void. “Inborn Scourge Unbound” is muddy, nasty, and bloody, guitars drilling before the pace takes an unexpected bend, pained howls dressing the chaos in pain. The playing then slows and churns, the slower beating turning things more brutal and excruciating, squeezing the life out of you. “Forsaken Offerings (to the Doomed Spirit)” boils as the force drives hard, growls jab, and a flattening assault mashes everything in its path. The tempo grinds before coming back to hellacious life, unleashing infernal heaviness, choking with black smoke.
“Instinctual Prostration” is menacing as it chews its way in, destroying with sickening howls and a monstrous force that takes everything by storm. The playing unloads as the guitars breathe ash, the leads strike, and the misery bleeds into “The Undrownable Howl of Evil.” Here, the riffs swagger as a battering force gets under way, fiery guitars scorching flesh. The vocals warp as the power weighs down harder, the leads quiver, and a gasp of menacing darkness bleeds right into closer “Barren Lamentation” that opens in a boiling simmer. The pace is slow driving but heavy as the growls gurgle, and the force flattens, strangling with full strength. Darkness spreads as the pace clubs, ugliness oozing from every seam, the guitars fully engulfing. Blood is spattered as blasts dig deeper, fading into mystical reverberation.
Ossuary’s death metal is not for easy listening or as background music as you work, and making that mistake thinking that can cost you. “Abhorrent Worship” is a battering machine that weighs down heavily the entire time, letting you have gasps of hot air and ashes, guaranteeing it’ll choke you to tears. This is a massive slab of death that buries you deep within the soil, refusing to let you know anything but pain and misery ever again.
For more on the band, go here: https://ossuary-death.bandcamp.com/
To buy the album, go here: https://www.mesacounojo.com/shop/ossuary-abhorrent-worship-gatefold-vinyl-poster/
Or here: https://darknessshallrise.de/?s=Ossuary&post_type=product&v=0b3b97fa6688
For more on the label, go here: https://www.mesacounojo.com/
Meat Mead Metal 