This Brazillan death metal band Fossilization throws you into the grinding grooves of their sound right from the very first riff of “Once Was God”. Leprous Daylight (Everlasting Spew) is their debut full-length so they obviously feel like they must prove the crushing might of their sonic brutality. 

If you like your Death Metal heavy as all hell this is good news. When it comes to any genre of extreme metal, there is the tendency to find yourself stunned by the initial intensity that hits you. Once this fades the question that must be asked is …Can you write a song? 

Anyone can buy the right equipment or find a producer who has downloaded the right presets to achieve a sound, but constructing a song is a different story. With this album, going back and giving a second listen to “Once Was God”  is a better option than letting the album play out into  “Oracle of Reversion”. With “Once Was God” they prove the throb of their attack has a head-banging groove to it where “Oracle of Reversion” buries you a blast fest of riffs steamrolling one another. This makes it the less dynamic of the two songs. 

“At the Heart of the Nest” ebbs more tempo-wise. The vocals remain at the same low nasty gurgle that they rarely stray from. The guitars vary from a dense buzz of brisk tension or a more deliberate grind and has a little more ebb and flow tempo wise which is really the only thing that changes with these guys. The vocals stay at the same low gurgle the entire time. The guitar tones remain a constant dense buzz or more deliberate grinding. They speed things back up for the title track… here is a more whispered growl, creating  the biggest shift in the vocals.

“The Night Spoke the Tongue of Flames” is a blur of jagged riffs. This song shows that this band is capable of coming up with riffs that are at times not just heavy metal but sonically heavy, this involves letting the strings ring out a little more. With the vocals out of the picture when it comes to helping provide melody, structure or dynamics to the song this is left up to the guitars. “Eon” has a little more groove in its angular riffing, along with space for the guitars to create a  more throbbing melody making it one of the more thoughtful songs of the album. 

The last song pulses with more of a  death-doom feel. This is more effective than just being pounded by an unrelenting barrage of guitars and double bass. Metal is like sex as well placed jackhammering goes a long way, but you do not want it as the only tool in the box or things get boring. 

These guys are aware of this as they move the album in a direction that expands the sonic range, showing at the end of the day they still care about songs rather than just capturing a sound, which considering Everlasting Spew has a track record of releasing albums with heavy as the mission statement, the fact this band’s songs bring more shades of sound than hyper aggressive blood red, they are ahead of the pack in this regard. 

If you want heavy, Fossilization are bringing you a wall of it. 

Buy the album here:

https://linktr.ee/EverlastingSpew

8 / 10

WIL CIFER