ATRÆ BILIS – Aumicide
ATRÆ BILIS – Aumicide
20 Buck Spin
Release Date:19/04/2024
Running Time: 40:00
Review by Rory Bentley
8.5/10
Canadian killers ATRÆ BILIS understand that Death Metal needs to be nasty, grotesque and downright uncomfortable and lord almighty do they tick those boxes on savage sophomore effort “Aumicide”. As one might expect from a band that derives their moniker from the Latin for ‘Black Bile’ this is a record that delights in turning stomachs, yet there is a finesse and musical flair to their approach that has to be applauded.
For me, my favourite Death Metal of the last few years has come from musicians with an incredibly high level of skill striving towards the sonic equivalent of a swamp littered with rotting body parts. Where high and low culture collide in a way where you can either stroke your chin or snap your neck depending on where the mood takes you. ATRÆ BILIS skirt the line between dizzying Tech Death and thugged out brutality throughout this obnoxious slab of vileness.
This is perfectly represented on the jarring early cut ‘Hell Simulation’ which has a guitar tone to sand your face off and riffs and jazz-inflected drums that will scramble your brain. The vocals are truly unsettling, often treated with a strange tremolo effect that makes them sound like the agonised cries of a grotesque mutant creation begging for human flesh or maybe a merciful death at the hands of its twisted maker. Somewhere between a zombie and the original Predator, it is an unnerving approach that is the sonic equivalent of the stomach churning body horror depicted on the album cover.
It is a technique that crops up time and time again, along with eerie chanted clean vocals as displayed on the demented ‘Salted In Stygia’. Along with the face breaking guitars and callously controlled violence dealt out by the band it is the most immediately noticeable feature, but there is much more to the album than just putting you off your lunch.
“Aumicide” is a record that rewards repeated listens in a way that a lot of more on-the-nose Tech Death releases often fall short of. There are grooves, hooks and intricate little bits of subtle texture that reveal themselves to those that persevere past the record’s filthy exterior. ‘A Kingdom of Cortisol’ somehow manages to turn from an epic Death Doom chugger to a Hardcore rager before blending into the ambient, moody intro of ‘Monolith Aflame’ as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It is a transition so slick that it feels like sleight of hand and shows a level of finesse beyond most of the band’s peers.
As we’ve come to expect from a 20 Buck Spin release, the production is suitably earthy and harsh in all the right places while retaining a clarity that allows the excellent musicianship and compositional innovation on display here to shine through. In a landscape where so much Technical Metal is polished to the point of sterility this kind of grit is important in retaining the genre’s sense of chaos and danger.
This album is definitely one for the sickos out there that like their Death Metal covered in guts and bile, however there’s a slickness and a songwriting nous that may just see ATRÆ BILIS pulling in more than just audio perverts like me.
ATRÆ BILIS- Salted In Stygia
TRACKLISTING:
01. Protoxenesis
02. Hell Simulation
03. Salted In Stygia
04. Inward to Abraxas
05. To Snuff The Spirit Guides
06. Aumicide
07. A Kingdom Of Cortisol
08. Monolith Aflame
09. Through The Hologram’s Cervix
10. Excruciate Incarnate
LINE-UP:
Luka Govednik– Drums
David Stepanavicius– Guitars
Jordan Berglund-Vocals
Miles Morrison– Bass
LINKS
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