Humankind fears death. It’s the ultimate ending. It’s terrifying. It’s final. It’s a mystery. Medical advancements and improvements in nutrition, sanitation, and cleanliness have helped people live longer and longer, but nothing can stave off what faces us all. Still, some are hellbent to try, and now the tech industry is spewing more terrifying shit.
The plight to extend life, no matter the means and cost to others, is splashed all over “Gateway,” the new album from Montreal death metal punishers Phobocosm. Building off themes from their last record “Foreordained,” the band—vocalist/bassist E.B., guitarists S.D. and R.M., drummer J.S.G.—digs into the rot of trying to topple expiration, especially those with desires beyond living forever. Those people only have the worst of ideas in mind, and even they will fall victim to the scythe eventually. This record, by the way, was recorded alongside “Foreordained,” thus giving it similar vibe. It also notes what this signals what the band calls an end chapter for this phase of Phobocosm.
“Deathless” opens in a surge, feeling whirry and weird, disorienting as the sounds hover over ominously. Then your digits are crushed, growls smearing and scraping over a din of smoke, ugly and sooty power corroding, the intensity spiking before whirring away. “Unbound” has the drums openly destroying, beastly growls slithering beneath the carnage, molten guitars boiling over and threatening. Growls gurgle as the morbid pace sweeps you under the floor, blackness permeating your senses and making a grim exit. “Corridor I – The Affliction” is the first of a trilogy of instrumental tracks, this one basking in fog, the playing jerking you awake, blazing with humidity before quietly fading.
“Sempiternal Penance” blasts through, growls crushing, an infernal force making the temperatures unmanageable. Chaos erupts as the growls engorge, a relentless fury stabbing forward, the nasty, inhumane growls peaking and melting into “Corridor II – The Descent.” Here, guitars burn and swarm, the impending power drawing air out of your lungs, the embers slowly losing heat. “Beyond the Threshold of Flesh” has guitars simmering and growls retching, a rhyme scheme feeling somewhat bouncy even as it digs in the blade. Skies darken as the playing decimates, calculated power combusting and sending shrapnel, growls lashing as the bass coils. Oil oozes from the cracks as the tempo gets thicker and nastier, crushing as it lures an eerie silence. Closer “Corridor III – The Void” snakes as guitars light up, soot is caked into mouths, and the steam grows heavier and more suffocating.
“Gateway” is a portrait of humankind devolving into worse versions of themselves, using technology as a guide to extend life and misery at the same time. Phobocosm pay that off with a brutal, mind-fogging experience that makes these horrors happening in real time even more disgusting. The world is an ugly place, and this band isn’t ducking away from calling out all of its human-made warts.
For more on the band, go here: https://phobocosm.bandcamp.com/
To buy the album (U.S.), go here: https://www.darkdescentrecords.com/shop/?s=PHOBOCOSM&post_type=product
Or here (Europe): https://ddmsuo.eu/
For more on the label, go here: https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/
Meat Mead Metal 