Excarnated Entity announce their debut album.
Formed in 2018 in the USA, the band will release a first independent demo the following year. In 2023, Rory Flay (bass, Ash Borer, Triumvir Foul, Serum Dreg, Utzalu…), Mike Stone (drums, Ash Borer, Triumvir Foul, Serum Dreg…), Nick Strickler (guitar) and Dan Fried (vocals/guitar, Bloody Master, live for Triumvir Foul…) sign with Nuclear Winter Records and release Mass Grave Horizon.
The album gets off to a melancholy start with the heady Abjection, a soothing introduction that’s crushed by the massive Carcinogen Shroud and its devastating blast. The Old School sound allows the slow riffs to gain momentum for the cavernous growls and majestic leads, then Irradiated Shadows takes over, accelerating the pace once again. The concept remains relatively similar, with the band taking advantage of a greasy, dissonant approach to pouring out their violence, punctuating the violent charges with more suffocating parts before letting Corridor of Flame shroud us in its darkness thanks to impressive riffs. Slowness reigns over the first part of the track, but the musicians soon accelerate to let the raw Death Metal roots express themselves, before slowing down again to lead us to Paralytic Reverie and its jerky rhythm, which also allows itself a few points of slowness between two waves of fury. The sound gradually slows down, then welcomes Mass Grave Horizon, the eponymous track, which returns to the rage with crushing, sizzling riffs played at high speed under a nightmarish double kick. The Butcher’s Pulpit hypnotizes us with ghostly melodies that emerge from its haunting march into heaviness, before letting Gallery of Defeat and its haunting harmonics introduce thicker riffs punctuated by savage screams, before a heavy finale that closes the album.
Excarnated Entity effortlessly handles the combination of dissonant, heady leads and a heavy rhythmic base, making Mass Grave Horizon suffocating and oppressive, while still allowing for bursts of violence.
80/100