ALBUM REVIEW: Excerpts From a Dread Liturgy – Drouth
Portland, Oregan has, arguably, been producing some of the best extreme metal acts in the last few years, from UADA to YOB, and inevitably, there’s bound to be a fair few acts within the underground scene there that are unfortunately overlooked within a scene that is already saturated with magnificent bands. Since changing their name from CONTEMPT back in 2014, DROUTH has been going from strength to strength, with their Knives, Labyrinths, Mirrors debut especially turning heads. The follow up to that record, Excerpts From a Dread Liturgy, is arguably the band’s most imaginative and ambitious album to date, blending slick melodies and caustic rhythms for one of the more impressive blackened death metal albums of the year.
A Drowning In Sunlight is a great opener, with slow, brooding guitars quickly giving way to chaotic, visceral hooks, cacophonous drumming and feral, frenzied vocals, which all combine to create a whirlwind of bestial intensity. It’s an excellent track with a caustic, sepulchral tinge to the production and a sound that ebbs and flows between tempos, making for an eclectic and monolithic opening gambit. An Apiarist takes a more melodic, yet nonetheless dissonant, approach to the music, with the more polished riffs, a cavernous drum sound and more expansive guitar tone lending this song an epic, but unflinchingly savage, feel. Although some of the more bellicose elements of the previous song are retained, this is ultimately a track driven by its brilliant, imaginative lead guitar work, which liberally peppers the music with some lighter, catchier sections that works extremely well and provide a great contrast to the darker quality of the rest of the music.
O Time Thy Pyramids – An Unfinished Nightmare begins with a much more hypnotic and ethereal sound, luring the listener into a false sense of security before descending into a more primitive and tumultuous passage which reasserts the rabid energy that this band is so good at capturing. The bulk of the song has some plenty of discordant, jarring flourishes punctuated with fantastic, slick guitars that manage to inject some impressive musicality into this primordial and hazy affair.
A Repulsive Act Shrouded in Flesh does an amazing job of counterpointing raw, grimy guitars with softer, sublime ones, a clash of styles that works exceptionally well, adding a slow burning, memorable side of the song before the track proper bursts into life on a wave of monstrous, unhinged aggression. A Crown of Asphodels, if anything, ratchets this intense and anarchic style into the next gear, with plenty of great, noxious guitars and grating rhythms crafting a much more bestial sound, with the magnificent, and noticeably harsher, emotive vocal deliveries only adding to the heady, claustrophobic sound even further. This is a track that seamlessly meshes together a variety of tones, styles and tempos to make for an interesting, impenetrably fierce exclamation point for the whole album.
There’s plenty of blackened death metal acts playing in a very similar style to DROUTH, combining chaotic aggression with jarring, yet incredibly catchy, lead hooks that give the music as a whole a more feral and disjointed feel than what many fans of this musical form are accustomed to. But there are a few subtle elements that separate this band from many of their contemporaries; firstly, they don’t shy away from utilising cleaner tones and softer moments in amongst the general cacophony of the music, which gives them a far more immersive and powerful sound, and secondly, they embrace a much dirtier and visceral production quality, which gives this album a darker, savage side that not many blackened death metal acts opt for. These small, but significant, stylistic choices elevate this album above many albums within the genre, and hopefully, people will pick up on this and give DROUTH the attention that they deserve.
Rating: 9/10
Excerpts From a Dread Liturgy is out now via Translation Loss Records.
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