ALBUM REVIEW: Unethical Terrestrial Collapse – Depraved Murder

DEPRAVED MURDER are one of the many hidden gems to be found within Indonesia’s extreme metal scene. Peddling a tight, ferocious brand of brutal death metal, the Pare-based duo have seemingly improved with each new release since they put out their debut demo in 2014, with the band’s most recent album Manifestation garnering them some well deserved wider attention. Just under four years since that album first saw the light of day, the band return with their third album, Unethical Terrestrial Collapse – an album that shows the beginnings of a subtle but intriguing change in the band’s sound that provides an imaginative take on what has, for the most part in recent years, become a fairly formulaic style of death metal.

Entering Into Calamity is a powerful start to the record, the cinematic opening motif quickly giving way to dense brutal death metal with chunky guitars peppered with melodic hooks, juggernaut drumming and impenetrable gutturals, all of which contribute to a muscular, unyielding sound. The Anguish Of Dystopian, much like the preceding track, is centred around a tight drum and guitar attack, lurching from solid grooves to demented, disjointed passages with ease to result in another domineering and ferocious piece of music.

False Adoration adjusts to a more measured pace, lending this song a massive quality, even though there’s little to differentiate the formula of this track from the last two in any way other than tempo. This literal change of pace doesn’t affect the intensity of the music, and in fact allows for subtler guitar flourishes to not be buried deep in the mix. Mass Murder Existence reverts to the blistering bestial style of the first two tracks, with angular guitar work, urgent, visceral vocals and frenetic drums providing a meaty aural assault that’s got a lot of excellent riffs spread generously throughout the cacophony.

Unmanifest Void is another fierce, groove-driven slab of brutal death metal, inflected with monstrous slams that only add to the aggression of the music on offer. Darker chords and slick leads add an imaginative, brooding edge to the song as a whole, serving as a slight alteration on the fast and furious approach that has informed this album’s sound. The Pinnacle Of Vile Conceit leans quite heavily into that eerie guitar sound that was touched on with the preceding offering, again opting for a slower, more rhythmic sound for maximum effect. It’s still got its chaotic moments, but this proves to be a more ponderous affair, and infinitely more impactful than if it had been a caustic burst of brutality.

Relentless Brutality, by contrast, is a short, sharp shock of blistering hooks, energetic drum performances and rumbling, throaty vocals that make this one of the more belligerent songs on the album. Unethical Terrestrial Collapse, with its polished, technical guitar lines, jarring passages and intricate drumming, showcases the impressive musicianship the band possess without straying too far outside of their established style into tech death, proving to be one of the most proficient songs on the record as a result. Apocryphal Hymns, another brief but utterly brilliant piece, sees the ominous discordance return once more into the sound, injecting a bleak element into this solid, fairly reserved piece of death metal and closing the album on a darkly dramatic note.

In a lot of ways, this bears many of the hallmarks of great brutal death metal, from fast, chaotic songs to dense gutturals and massive, chunky guitar work. But there are a few flashes of inventive songwriting in here that are definitely playing quite significantly with the established template of the genre, notably Unmanifest Void, The Pinnacle Of Vile Conceit and Apocryphal Hymns, all of which inset a sombre edge into the music, along with measured tempos, to creating something far more cinematic and engrossing than even some of the best bands within brutal death metal. Hopefully, these musical explorations are a sign of things to come, as it would be interesting to see this style developed and perfected on whatever DEPRAVED MURDER have planned next.

Rating: 8/10

Unethical Terrestrial Collapse is out now via Comatose Music.

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