When you create sky-high expectations with your earlier releases, you better deliver with aplomb with your new album. And while you are at it, you might as well do it in a jaw-dropping manner. That is exactly what Eccentric Pendulum does on their sophomore full-length album Perspectiva Invertalis, a veritable home run of excellence marked by impeccable songwriting, genuinely catchy riffs and evocative melodies. 

Hailing from Bangalore, India, Eccentric Pendulum first got my full attention with their 2017 EP Tellurian Concepts, a mesmerizing exercise in atmospheric, progressive and avant-garde death metal, enriched by Bruce Lamont’s saxophone and Michael Manring’s simultaneously jazzy and funk fretless bass, which evoked the likes of Gorguts, Lateralus-era Tool and Destroy Erase Improve-era Meshuggah. If your band can attract and enlist guest stars of Lamont and Manring’s caliber, it is clear you are onto something special with your vision. This time, Eccentric Pendulum have secured the heavy-hitter talents of my two favorite drummers, Kévin Paradis (session drums) and Hannes Grossmann (guest drums on “In Pretence”), with Paradis also responsible for the album’s consummate production that is equal parts clear, punchy and pleasantly warm and accentuates every instrument and the accomplished collective and respective performances. The album also taps into the pummeling muscle and twisting dexterity of their 2015 single “Resisting Another Equation”, repurposing its powerbomb essence into an agile form of progressive death metal that is imbued with soulful technicality, wicked groove and rhythmic wizardry. Friends of Arun Natarajan’s other band Moral Collapse will also be pleased to notice moments of shared DNA.

Perspectiva Invertalis excels in balancing the progressive, technical and groove- and thrash-oriented strains of death metal, integrating the best of each world in a mutually reinforcing and elevating manner. Every song has an almost playful nature and the relaxed flow of a jam session, delivered with expressive technical mastery and absolute confidence that ensures the music is simultaneously knotty and fluid and grounded in the strength of the arrangements. It is uncommon to call a metal album irresistible or delectable, but that unusual description characterizes aptly the essence of Perspectiva Invertalis. It is abundantly fun, but not in a way that caters to beer-swilling cavemen; it is also astute and intelligent, albeit not requiring a doctorate in music theory; nimble without resorting to clinical technicality or boisterous showboating. 

While each track hovers in the five-to-six-minute territory, things remain fresh and captivating through the entire album, as every song continues evolving naturally and in delightful ways. It’s a galore of memorable highlights, running the gamut from the racing cycles at the end of “In Pretence”, the curious vocal harmonies appearing on “Cyclic Vicissitude” and “In Exile” to the leaps, jabs, lunges and percussive punctuation of “Narcissistic Myopia”, including how Natarajan’s bass delivers rapid bursts of the prodigious whirlwind he deployed on Moral Collapse albums, sprinkled at tactical intervals to embellish and impress, such as in the closing moments of “Immersed in Reverence”.

Perspectiva Invertalis is a prime example of how to achieve the coveted all killer, no filler ideal, executed in a practically flawless manner, where every artistic decision feels right and as it should be; an album that reaches dizzying heights of greatness and triggers an entrancing urge to experience it again immediately after its conclusion.

– Zyklonius

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Perspectiva Invertalis is available September 6 on Subcontinental Records. For more information on Eccentric Pendulum, check out their Facebook page.