Hostilities resume for Adversarial.
Nine years after their previous release, the Canadian band composed of C.S. (guitar/vocals), E.K. (drums, Lapidate) and M.M. (bass, ex-Dead of Winter, ex-Nuclearhammer) unveil Solitude with the Eternal…, their third album, on Dark Descent Records.
The band kicks off with Beware the Howling Darkness On Thine Left Shoulder, a massive first composition that wastes no time in crushing us while ruthlessly deploying growls and dissonance. The rhythm slows down at times, while keeping its heaviness, before Hatred Kiln Of Vengeance takes its place with a similar approach, also adopting a few more screaming leads that naturally graft themselves onto the chaotic mix. The sound continues with Witness to the Eternal Light, which features some more majestic, almost melodic harmonics, but tortured vocals plunge us back into this imbroglio of darkness that doesn’t cease until Death Is an Advisor in the Woods of the Devil hypnotizes us with its eerie macabre sounds that rival the near-constant blast. Crushed into the Kingdom of Darkness allows us a brief moment’s respite, before roars and heaviness pull us out of this moment of calm and gradually accelerate the riffs, making them majestic at times, before returning to pure violence on Merging Within the Destroyer and its Old School as aggressive impenetrable basis. The suffocating sound of incessant pounding welcomes a heart-rending solo before slightly calming down, then Fanes at the Engur takes its place with an equally tormented and confrontational rhythm, finally letting Endless Maze of Blackest Dominion close the album with the same mixture of terror and oppression mixed with an inexhaustible hatred that constantly spews out in our faces.
Dissonance is Adversarial‘s main weapon, making Solitude with the Eternal… a truly dark compendium of as violent as unhealthy influences. Handle with care.
80/100