EP Premiere: Warp Chamber Will Eradicate Everything You Love
Stream the debut EP from dirty death metal group Warp Chamber here right now!
Now more than ever, “weird” death metal is one of the most prominent parts of the genre’s modern repertoire. From the dissodeath wave that started around the 2010’s to even the recent infusion of vaguely Finnish styled psychedelic weirdness of today, death metal is experiencing a rediscovery and grand exploration of the unusual elements of its origins. One might say that even “old school” death is no stranger to the abstraction and deformation that is quickly becoming a norm in many circles with the influence of a band once as idiosyncratically obscure as Timeghoul going from niche references to standard parts of one’s sound. The debut demo of Norway’s Desolation Realm was a strong example of this (though I personally found their sound while promising a little too blocky) and now they are joined by these Americans with their debut two song demo.
Like their Scandinavian counterparts, Warp Chamber emphasize less of the eerie film score and modernist classical inspired dark grandeur of the ‘Ghoul but instead emphasize the visceral combo of classic Floridian and New York style death metal that served as their framework, reveling in a hellish savagery ancient in its origins but distinctly contemporary in its organization. Where Desolation Realm are chunky to a degree almost akin to early Suffocation, Warp Chamber are melodic without being “melodeath” with lengthy tremolo riffs rapidly climbing to a feverish intensity with frenetic drumming racing in tandem. Abrupt shifts into chunkier palm muted riffing are sparse yet strategic in their application, varying flow and the shapes of melody. Partially obscured by this sorcerous maelstrom, a half-buried voice calls out with disconnected guttural chants, warning and distant, occasionally breaking into sickeningly wet and dripping shrieks. While certainly borne of the genre’s hallowed traditions, the revolting practices of this demo are refreshingly free of the hollow imitation clogging a concerningly large portion of “old school death metal” while making no concessions to the sterility of the modern styles it originally rose as a response to.
The opening title track immediately lunges for the jugular with a regimented Dead Congregation/Morbid Angel style rising tremolo pattern, mutating into a surprisingly headbang friendly mid-tempo stomp, varied with concise bursts of scrying harmonies and scurrying double kick syncopated power chords. Immediately afterwards a nightmarish tsunami of jutting, malformed guitar work obliterates any sense of comfort and stability in a maelstrom of hungry violence. “Harvesting The Life Force Of A Crumbling Orb”, clocking in at nine minutes, barely seems to rest in spite of its length with every new riff becoming more monstrously twisted and each lead that appears a mocking commentary on the new heights of depravity it aims to reach. Even when it slows down to a “doomy” pace, its jarring pinch harmonics and staccato chugs remain eve dedicated to a constant sense of ever aggressive threat right unto the malformed mayhem that brings it to a destructive, bitter end. This is otherworldly intransigence from an unusual and distant domain, making a vile incursion into our own. Hail and riff.
Warp Chamber’s Abdication Of The Mind is out tomorrow through Redefining Darkness Records.
Pick up your copy here!
