Premiere: Verthebral – ‘Isolation Room’

November 19, 2019

2245

Paraguayan deathcult for eternity.

Remember mid-2017? Hahahah, trick question. No-one does. That’s why we won’t hold it against you if the name Verthebral doesn’t immediately ring a bell. For me though, it recalled a mental image of a kaledeiscopic sci-fi themed album cover, and some fucking mad 90’s vibe’d death metal from a country where I knew precisely one local band. How did my addled mind manage to fire the correct synapses on this lone occasion? Because, fellow flusher, I was fortunate enough to premiere the title track from the band’s kick-arse debut album Regeneration.

Fast-forward two and a half years and here we are again, with an offering from the band’s upcoming second record, Abysmal Decay. Fast-forward again, just 5 minutes from now this time, and you’ll understand why they’ve been signed on by our longtime label friends at Transcending Obscurity Records for the release of this new joint. The improvement is undeniable. All the elements of the band’s sound we remarked upon before still prevail, from the clomping bass, potent mid-tempo USDM-flavoured riffing, the rollicking double-bass drums, it’s all still there, however everything is tighter and feels more concentrated. In short, it fucks. I’ve had the chance to give the album a couple of cursory plays and if you dug their debut, you’re gonna be stoked with Abysmal Decay in every possible way. There are even a couple of poignant acoustic interludes which imbue the album with that touch of class often lacking in a genre as densely populated as modern death metal. Let’s put it this way, when a promo-pack comes in containing the words: Krisiun, Morbid Angel, Death, and Turkka Rantanen you know they’d wanna have the goods.

Tracklist:

1. Ancient Legion
2. The Act Of Perversion
3. Abysmal Decay
4. Isolation Room
5. Coronation Of Envy
6. Absence Of A God
7. Sweet Home Illusion
8. Obsidian Tears
9. My Dark Existence
10. Testimony Of Hate