Premiere: Writhing – Of Earth And Flesh
Solid, squalid, and overall apalléd.
Spew still knows how to pick ’em, as if there were any doubt. Let’s all ring in the fresh debutante of the hour, Writhing, showing a fine curtsy and a plasmogorgic flash of tech-death ankle for all you strapping suitors out there.
Of Earth And Flesh shows both in its title and its bones the artistic virtue of bifurcation, with granite-hard pounding riffs edging up against organic atmospheric seances, measure by measure. Taking the cues from cosmically-minded counterparts Tomb Mold, the boys carve out big ol’ grooves and honed tremolo, chumming the water for hungry riffheads unaware that they are soon to be harvested. Once the lure is splattered around and the prey is swarming, Writhing turn on the anti-grav beam and let the more heady, pensive lines of dissonance and menace flow freely, specked with artificial harmonics that feel like a battery of cold syringes sinking rudely beneath dermis. When the breakdown comes back, its purpose is to peel your skin and turn you into bait for the next round.
Suffice it to say, in spite of their nascence, Writhing shows a broad grasp of both the formal and impressionistic tools available to modern death metal, and a rarer skill of setting up and playing them off against one another. “Squalid Sanctum” gets my personal stamp for most promising specimen, mostly cause of dat gallop. You’ll hear what I mean.
Of Earth & Flesh is out tomorrow through Everlasting Spew Records. Check ’em out Bandcamp and FB too if that’s your thang.
