Australian death metal heavyweights (literally) Disentomb have taken time out of their busy lifting schedule to drop their newest album The Decaying Light via Unique Leader Records, the long awaited successor to the 2014 masterpiece that is Misery, and it drops with one hell of a bang!
The Decaying Light remains true to the blueprint that has served Disentomb so well over the years – guttural vocals that could level buildings; frantic riff-work that slices your head off and drums that will pound what remains of your lifeless husk back into the earth from whence you were spawned. This album also picks up and expands on the subtle, and almost experimental intricacies that made Misery stand out so well in the first place in what can often seem an over saturated genre where bands seem to be desperately trying to “out-heavy” their peers but unfortunately in turn end up creating “death metal by numbers”. Here these subtleties are used tastefully to create an album which is thirteen tracks of devastatingly heavy, yet also sophisticated and intelligently written, death metal which has, at the same time, raised the bar for the genre in general – Disentomb can now look over their shoulders, smile back at the competition and confidently say “catch us if you can”.
By resisting some of the conventions of the genre may mean that The Decaying Light doesn’t appeal to some of the purists out there – for instance the album is not awash with fret-wanking solos, but this is a brilliant piece of work that should be held in the highest regard. It will be interesting to see where the band go following this album, as whilst it does successfully build on Misery, the one criticism that could be levied at the album, it is that you might struggle at times to distinguish between the two records – lets just hope it doesn’t take another five years to find out! For now though, grab your weights, stick this record on and let it beef up your life.
The Decaying Light is out now via Unique Leader Records and can be purchased here.
Words: Luke Davison
