2023 continues to prove itself as a year of strong death metal as Horrendous drops their fifth album Ontological Mysterium (Season of Mist) and the Philly headbangers might have the year’s best death metal album on their hands, perhaps a bold statement given the fine releases the year has seen from the likes of Obituary, Frozen Soul, Creeping Death, Cattle Decapitation and Outer Heaven. 

However, Horrendous went into the studio knowing they already set a high bar for themselves with both Idol and Anareta. Rather than trying to create something more brutal or more technical, they wrote catchy songs that recall the classic sounds of late eighties and early nineties death metal without getting caught up in nostalgia. 

Production-wise, the band captures with this album a more organic feel than their previous work. The songs take dynamic twists and turns that return to catchy riffs, possessed as they are by a rawer thrash energy. The band employs many of the melodic elements they made use of on past releases, such as cleanly sung vocals, placing them at even less predictable points in the songs. I prefer guitar solos creating a wandering jammy addition to the songs, rather than engaging in the Metal Olympics of warp speed shredding and the guitar solos on this album find a middle ground that serves the songs, adding layers to the arrangements rather than using the song as a vehicle to burn the fretboard to.

In early press for the album, the band stated they wanted to get back to a place of eighties and nineties metal, and that can be felt on ‘Neon Leviathan’. It has a rawer more thrash like energy to it with the bass driving things forward in an aggressive manner. It’s not until the end of the song that they begin to use their space age tricks. Things switch over into a more jazzy groove going into ‘Aurora Neoterica’ which is really only an interlude leading to ‘Preterition Hymn’.  It works off a slithering death metal groove until the melodic middle section lets things simmer down til the end. “Cult of Shaad”oh” has a hooky mid-paced groove that is more like Morbid Angel’s most memorable moments. The vocals shift from snarls to dramatic exclamations. The mosh inducing hookiness of the riffs is where they are excelling on this album. Sometimes this gives things a more Megadeth-like groove in the manner the technical guitar playing is balanced out in order to create something that sticks to your ears. 

They hammer into your ears with more intensity on the title track.  Amid this remains an underlying balance of Jazz-flavored nuance. They crunch down harder on this album with every gallop and chug. The double bass also carries more thunder, when it emerges, but is not used every moment of every song. Here lies the key to their success, rather than rely on the tropes of death metal they use them as tools to drive the point home, allowing melodies room to breathe. This makes the album stand out. 

All too often  your typical death metal band blasts you with unrelenting aggression and a wall of double bass at the cost of writing songs with repeat listens. They close the album with ‘The Deathknell Ringeth’ which carries more menace in its snarls. The vocals are more aggressive throughout this album, but perhaps this most with the anguish from which they are screamed on this one. The fake-out ending is really well done. 

There is not one area that this album doesn’t excel at. If you are a fan of Death Metal, you really owe it to yourself to give this album a listen. Fans of this band will find this new chapter hits all the right spots.

Buy the album here:

https://horrendous.bandcamp.com/album/ontological-mysterium

9 / 10

WIL CIFER