It’s not a huge shock when death metal makes your brain swim inside your skull and your guts liquify, but usually it’s because the content is disgusting and violent in a way that might make you sick. But there are other means for achieving that effect and indulging in something that still challenges you but keeps your stomach contents intact.

Italian death metal band Stigiform is on their first record, that being “Aconite,” a six-track, 42-minute excursion into a bizarre blend of horrors that challenge your brain and might bend your nerves. The band—vocalist V, guitarist/synth player/vocalist Saprovore, bassist Aiakos, drummer Morte Rossa—is made up of members of groups such as Vertebra Atlantis, Afraid of Destiny, and Thirst Prayer, and here they push their sound to strange limits. It’s progressive and warped but never in a way that sacrifices its smoldering heart. It’ll make you think of this stuff a little differently, which is welcome.

“Adamant” starts mangling, growls buried in the miasma, tricky, yet fluid playing making your blood race. The pace massacres and sickens, speeding with dizzying melodies, spilling into a sound vortex that flows into “Scorched and Hostile” the savages from the word go. There are weird clean notes that feel like ice dripping inside your skull, creating some variation with the rubbery attack. Howls lash as the intensity spikes, the guitars buzz and slink over strange territory, and that melts into the unknown. “Obsecration” spirals as the leads confound, gnarly bass snakes through thick tributaries, and the drums thunder. The pace halts before jolting anew, the leads tease fire, and then calm arrives, keys bleeding out in strange visions.

“Hypnagogic Allure” has guitars chiming, picking up as the leads bleed, the playing jangling and feeling like screws are loose. Howls unleash hell, storming with dizzying effects, clean gazing making your head spin, screams ravaging as everything ends in calculated confusion. “Prismatic Delirium” engulfs everything, fast, punishing surges bruising, your limbs tingling from the attack, the heat settling as the bass continues to slink in darkness. Cosmic steam collects as the power combusts, the guitars speeding through strange dimensions, digging into psyches. Closer “Knell of Nethermost Withdrawal” begins with steam rising, icy keys mixing into a morbid eruption. Violent rhythms jar as the guitars rocket, the bass scars, and the heat intensifies. The fury strangles as hypnotic power chews muscle, notes spiral into time, and moodiness activates and sparks before fading.

“Aconite” is a record that might take some time to fully absorb as its bizarre world and mind-bending attack can feel oddly alien at first. Well, after multiple listens too. Maybe all of them. Strigiform’s bizarre death metal feels like you had a strange dream from which you’re not sure you’ve actually awakened. And from the unsettling visions the music pushes into your head, your concerns you’re unconscious are not as wild as you may think.

For more on the band, go here: https://strigiformbm.bandcamp.com/

To buy the album (U.S.), go here: https://metalodyssey.8merch.us/

Or here (Europe): https://metalodyssey.8merch.com/

For more on the label, go here: https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/