It is time for Phenocryst to unveil its first EP.
Created in 2020 in Portugal by D.S. (guitar/vocals) and P. Tosher (drums), the band is joined by N (guitar/vocals) and V.M. (bass), and composes Explosions, released at Blood Harvest.
We begin on Fumarole Emanations, a track with a very raw and weighing sound. Old School Death Metal influences are easily melted to an impressive Doom/Death basis, just like ghoulish howlings and suffocating dissonance, then the band quickly authorises us to breathe before Phreatic Explosions. Sometimes more energetic than the previous one, the composition offers disturbing leads under this greasy and dark basis, in which those wild howlings live, then the apocalyptic final drive us to Pyroclastics Flow. The sound turns out to be very heavy and haunting again, but it also unveils some hooking parts, brutal accelerations and piercing lead parts. Craters spreads chaos thanks to heady riffs and somehow different vocals which allows raw influences to surface again before Igneous Fluids, a mysterious outro. The sound is still into this oppression with an end of the world taste, with a soft and discrete guitar melody, then the sound progressively ends.
Taking inspiration from Doom/Death and Old School Death, Phenocryst develops a weighing eruption. Explosions is a quite short EP which allows to locate the band’s universe and to swallow heavy and oppressive riffs.
80/100