ALBUM REVIEW: Viscera – Strigoi
Like Abandon All Faith before it, death-doom supergroup STRIGOI’s follow-up Viscera transports you to the darkest corners of the human psyche. And just as its predecessor VALLENFYRE did with Fear Those Who Fear Him, Viscera refines what came before to create a definitive sound.
Doubling down on the dissonantly cavernous death-doom that Abandon All Faith did so well, Viscera is a journey through death and decay, a study between which breaks first: our battered bodies or decaying minds. Opener United In Viscera deals in downtuned, distorted guitars that drag you limb by limb into the abyss, every sparse drum fill flooding your senses in darkness. As vocalist Greg Mackintosh growls “I shed this human skin / All joy fades from within,” you can’t help but feel the light drift away from your eyes – this is worldbuilding at its finest, and death-doom at its dreary, delectable best.
Whereas Abandon All Faith swapped genres between songs like they were trading card swapsies in the school playground, Viscera pieces its pace together like a puzzle. Whilst Ocean Of Blood’s sludgy slog through droney death-doom, as if readying to wage war on a battlefield, slows things down, Napalm Frost’s battering ram blast-beats set your skull alight like its namesake engulfing every inch of your skin, embracing nail-biting hardcore like it’s going out of fashion. Nothing ever feels out of place though, every experiment and sonic detour has its purpose in driving forward the journey STRIGOI are undergoing.
If you had the foresight to know you were going to be dragged to the deepest depths of the ocean floor, held down and drowned forevermore, Viscera is the album you’d ask to soundtrack it. Whether its Byzantine Tragedy’s chiming winds, Hollow’s gothic chanting, or King Of All Terror’s blood-curling horror movie scream, STRIGOI set scenes like they’re directing movies.
Where STRIGOI’s soundtracking works best is Side A’s transition into Side B, as the six-minute cinematic centrepiece Hollow ushers you into the heart of the abyss as its dreary, dissonant, downtuned dirge of a sound gives way to A Begotten Son’s false sense of comfort, starting with sparse sludge, instruments filtering in and out sparingly, before kicking into full-on blackened death metal, with Mackintosh defiantly roaring “Is this Gehenna, or is this the end?” before melodic riffs shine out in cornerstone moments. Arguably the album’s highlights, these two tracks pass the baton as their death-doom slowly shifts into a blackened death metal approach you might see BEHEMOTH or GAEREA create.
STRIGOI prove on Viscera that they’re masters of sensory explosions. Bathed In A Black Sun’s feedback-enveloped drums pound away at your internal cage until it breaks, whilst Redeemer’s blast-beats bludgeon the living daylights out of your eardrums before deafening you with Tinnitus-inducing distorted feedback. It’s death-doom at it’s finest.
But where Viscera truly excels as an album is in the partnership that bore it. Like extreme metal’s answer to Elton John and Bernie Taupin, STRIGOI’s Mackintosh and Chris Casket compose worlds rather than songs. Mackintosh wrote music to match Casket’s lyrics, painting a bleak midwinter to roam through. Whether it’s religion – “On bloodied knees, my hands left bare / Forever praying to something that was never there” – or balancing decaying physical and mental health – “Inhale the suffering upon the cusp / Sprawling sickness within divine disgust” – Viscera leaves no stone left unturned and delivers every line with a guttural gusto that growls its way through your flesh and into your bones.
When VALLENFYRE called it quits, it felt as if death metal had lost its next revolutionary. On Viscera, Mackintosh and Casket defiantly declare STRIGOI are here to change the shape of death-doom to come, having composed a masterful descent into madness.
Rating: 9/10
Viscera is set for release on September 30th via Season Of Mist.
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