Exhalus sings of the end of our world with its new EP.
Created in Finland by musician Mircea Purdea, the project has already released seven EPs, three albums and a split (with Persistence in Mourning) before offering us Inexorable Decay in early 2025.
We start with the eerie, Doom/Death-influenced sound of Erosion, a rather hazy, dissonant composition that quickly becomes heady, thanks in particular to hypnotic harmonics. The various cries also help to maintain the mystery before Vortex offers us a more stirring Prog dimension, but the chaotic lyrical and theatrical vocals break up this energy before being softened by Grinder where a female voice joins the mix. The harmonics remain ominous while dissipating in the air, accompanying the progression through the track until Surrender where the instrumental slowly advances and surrounds us with its darkness, leaving no other place possible in this tenebrous vortex. We eventually reach Faded, where piano and saxophone await us, only to be met by percussion and two voices that let us dance with them, then disappear into nothingness.
Inexorable Decay is highly experimental, but also very much concerned with hazy sounds, allowing Exhalus to show us a little of their Finland, with all its coldness and ambient darkness.
70/100