EP REVIEW: True Delusion – Witness Chamber

Two names are practically synonymous with quality in hardcore releases right now; Flatspot Records and DAZE, the latter in particular churning out some vicious metallic hardcore. The upcoming EP from WITNESS CHAMBER is exactly that; brawling, savage metallic hardcore with its feet firmly in the present of hardcore, while still reaching back to the early 2000s for some punishing breakdowns. 

At just six songs and barely fifteen minutes, there’s no filler whatsoever on True Delusion, just savagery and rage. Building on their 2021 debut EP Paradise Awaits, there’s a definite sense of a band with plenty to say who’ve taken influence from outside the typical sphere too. The death metal roars of opener Bear Witness contrast against hardcore barks and guitars that pull from crossover as they do hardcore. 

Of The World rampages just as much as Bear Witness, injecting variety with a guest appearance of EGO DEATH’s Maximus Hall to contrast against Chad Pingree’s excoriating bark. Barrelling along at breakneck pace, it refuses to let up even in the grooving stomp between verses. The following Scars Of Correction hurls plenty of two-step riffs into the fray along with its fist-swinging groove, ladling in one last beatdown at the end for good measure, but it’s arguably fourth track By The Finger Of God that’s the star of the show so far.

It opens much as you’d expect by now; it’s mighty pissed off, frantic and the guitars chug with reckless abandon, but it’s when MORTALITY RATE/WORLD OF PLEASURE’s Jess Nyx enters with her searing bark that the track goes into the stratosphere. It’s not even a minute long; at the 55-second mark, it’s done, a wrecking ball of a song that needs the ambient opening of followup Psalm to even allow the chance of recovery. Of course, the band soon ladle on the beatdowns, the sole mosh call being the words “Witness Chamber” before resuming the bludgeoning. 

Acta Est Fabula closes the EP, practically sprawling over three minutes but summing up the preceding chaos and fury in one of the EP’s bluntest lines; “In the end there’s no difference, between you and me, we share the same fate, embracing our eternal sleep”. Raging against issues plaguing humanity, from media consumption to religious indoctrination, True Delusion pulls no punches and takes no prisoners; it might be under fifteen minutes long and they’re hardly reinventing the wheel, but the aural battering it delivers leaves lasting damage. 

Rating: 7/10

True Delusion is set for release on August 18th via DAZE.

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