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Warpit of Coiling Atrocities, by Adversarial / Paroxsihzem
This death metal split releases offers a lot of heat but little comfort.
If black metal is the perfect complement to winter, evoking a blasted and frostbitten tundra with gelid guitar and hoarfrost production, then death metal is its antithesis. There is something in the harsh, guttural vocals that conjures fire-breathing—the guitar tone feels red-hot instead of frosted over. This new split from two Toronto-based death metal monstrosities, Adversarial and Paroxsihzem, doesn’t thaw so much as it blisters, bringing aggression and offering no comfort. As it should.
Released on the label Vault of Dried Bones, Warpit of Coiling Atrocities is lean and perfectly ugly. The four tracks contributed by Adversarial have all the tenderness and subtlety of wire whips. There’s a clotting thickness to the guitar tone, especially in “Warwolf,” but it’s offset by the bristling hostility of the percussion. “Cursed Blades Cast Upon the Slavescum of Christ” gives itself a bit more room to breathe, no less dense and chaotic but a little more decadent.
The three songs contributed by Paroxsihzem are longer and more winding, less about full-frontal assault and more about flanking, knives to the ribs rather than a shotgun to the face. The tone they achieve is more abyssal that sepulchral, seeming to issue from the deepest ocean trench, and it’s just as alien as the monsters that can be found at those depths. Adversarial conjures the demonic in the more traditional sense, while Paroxsihzem calls up Leviathan.