New misdeed under the Dead & Dripping banner.
For this fourth album, Nefarious Scintillations, Evan Daniele (vocals/all instruments, Anal Exorcism, Vulnificus, Sentient Horror…) has once again chosen Transcending Obscurity Records.
The creator is now accompanied by TJ Coon (bass, Trog, Sentient Horror, Reeking Aura) and Nikhil Talwalkar (drums, Anal Stabwound, Bludgeoned, Virulent Excision, ex-Hate Inclination…) live, handling vocals and guitar himself.
From the very first seconds, Nefariously Scintillating through Vacant Galactic Reservoirs is disturbing, but when the complex riffs with their thick mix come into play, we are once again swept away by the mastery and violence of its creator, who offers us no escape. The tangle of riffs rolls on relentlessly, offering moments that are more explosive but just as complex to grasp as they are to play, such as the solos, then moving on to Horrifying Glimpses Into Inconceivably Demented Cityscapes, which is shorter and therefore more direct, combining heaviness and aggressive patterns. The shrill harmonics are even more numerous on this track, which quickly gives way to Pestilent Hints of Darkened Malodorous Vibrations and its anguished initial silence, which is replaced by a new dose of virulent oppression, to which are added the man’s vociferations and his exacerbated technicality. The finale is particularly disturbing, but it remains consistent with the logic of the track, followed by the very long Swollen Torsos Adorned with Pustulating Hexagonal Crania, where the musician has no qualms about stringing together the strangest vocal parts over an often unpredictable rhythm that has no qualms about escalating almost constantly in this turbulent environment. Sickeningly Vague Anatomical Silhouettes allows us a very brief moment of respite, but the track lasts less than two minutes and doesn’t miss an opportunity to impose its macabre groove on us, relying on a slamming bass, before Spontaneous Recollections of Unwitnessable Atrocity resumes its purely chaotic technicality. We note the extremely jerky playing of each instrument, which combine to give substance to this dirty sound that rages at full speed and only calms down to make way for Seeping through Ancient Transdimensional Corridors, where mysterious effects join the party, adding an even more frightening element of the unknown, while the vocals are even more monstrous. The end of the track is a real relief, but the clear sound of An Utterly Tenantless World of Aeons-Long Death doesn’t last, and the ordeal resumes with its usual saturation, adorning patterns each more convoluted and unexpected than the last, ending the album with the same incomprehension on our faces as when it began.
While the primary influence of Dead & Dripping is very easy to guess, it is nonetheless respected to the letter! The Demilichian legacy is pushed to its peak on Nefarious Scintillations, an album that will be misunderstood and hated by many, but which will undoubtedly find its fans.
80/100
