In Dante’s Inferno, the second circle begins the proper punishment of Hell, a place where “no thing gleams.” It is reserved for those overcome with Lust, where carnal appetites hold sway over reason. In Nine Circles, it’s where we do shorter reviews of new (ish) albums that share a common theme.
In today’s edition, we will explore two new albums that represent different facets of technical death metal and the richness and excellence the genre can offer as we head into a new year. UK’s Cognizance and their new album Phantazein and Legend by France’s Exocrine. Buckle up, as things are about to get intense.
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Cognizance’s previous album Malignant Dominion claimed the #10 spot on my best of 2019 list and their new full-length Phantazein continues building on their earlier technical and musical excellence, and then some, as the band that already was “an incredibly lean death metal muscle machine” in 2019 has continued building its strength and agility and leveling up in the area of impeccable sharpness, delivering a precision-strike with an endless flurry of razor-sharp riffs, without ever resorting to clinical uber-technicality or robotic delivery.
Everything on Phantazein is dialed up and somehow simultaneously even tighter and more expansive than on Malignant Dominion. Exemplified by the opening one-two punch of “Ceremonial Vigour” and “A Brain Dead Memoir,” the music on display is devilishly intricate and strangely sophisticated and demonstrates the band’s confident grasp of technicality and musicality in beautiful balance, replete with injections of melodic embellishment, harmony and atmosphere and a nimble infectious groove that together provide soulful character for the relentless nature of Cognizance’s craft. All this is crowned by Ronnie Björnström’s excellent mixing and mastering that provides the album with a warm and organic analog charm and gives every instrument space and clarity to impress. Absolutely thrilling stuff.
Phantazein will be available on January 26 on Willowtip Records. For more information on Cognizance, visit their Facebook page.
And in the other corner, hailing from France, we have Exocrine, the titan of technical death metal and ambassador of the bombastic blockbuster strain of the genre, weighing the equivalent of a mega-planet and capable of releasing a concussive blast wave that will shake the highest mountaintops and flatten the mightiest of cities. Legend is utter widescreen devastation, a wall of sound that pulverizes the listener. Like Impureza, their brethren in the brotherhood of colossal, cinematic death metal, Exocrine complement the brawn with surprising elegance, such a sudden trumpet break mere 1:20 into the opening salvo of the album’s title track or the electronic outro of “Dust in the Naught.”
In the big picture of their discography, Legend contains Exocrine’s best and most adventurous songwriting and their most breathtaking performances, with nary a mediocre song on the track list. My only criticism concerns the crushing (and not in a good way), compressed and brickwalled production which is akin to a smothering layer of mud that takes away a major part of the audiophile side of the experience and enjoyment (as a point of comparison, listen to the production of the aforementioned Impureza’s La Caída de Tonatiuh). Notwithstanding the production, Legend is an excellent album and a must-listen for fans of brutal and progressive technical death metal.
Legend will be available January 26 on Season of Mist. For more information on Exocrine, visit their Facebook page.
Well, I daresay that 2024 is off to a really good start as far as technical death metal is concerned, with many more high-quality releases to come as the year progresses. I’ve said this many times before, but when it comes to metal, I feel that we are truly living in the best imaginable timeline.
— Zyklonius
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