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ANCIENT DEATH
Ego Dissolution

Profound Lore (2025)
Rating: 7.5/10

“Beneath the pillars of creation we fall through the lens of time, seamlessly meandering from the inside… For eons we voyage unseen realms, to reach the plane of ego dissolution”. And so begins the debut full-length opus from Massachusetts death metal band Ancient Death. Since forming in 2019, the foursome have churned out an EP (Sacred Vessel) in 2022, a split single with Germany’s Putridarium in 2023, a three-song demo in 2024, and now this eight cut album.

With its striking cover art, Ancient Death’s new release hammers on the door and breaks in within seconds due to its initial bursts of pile driving percussion and guitar work that snaps bones. Cosmically aligned with Blood Incantation via their 2016 album Starspawn, Ego Dissolution starts as a blistering attack boasting a variety of vocal styles which snap and punch amidst the seething tides of intense riffage. Body blows are delivered in unrelenting motions but then give way to sparse and colder chimes resulting in the slower, bleaker strains showcased on the title track.

Ancient Death are no strangers to subtlety either, trickling atmospheric passages into their works alongside more classic rock, and, dare I say it, “bluesy” shades as again I refer to the title track. That’s not to say that this is otherworldly or even progressive, but there are moments when the structures feel and sound expansive enough to reach for the stars. I do however prefer the more deathlier vocal assaults over some of the more “squawky” yaps as evidenced on ‘Echoing Chambers Within The Dismal Mind’, but it’s the music that washes over you which really counts here.

‘Unspoken Oath’ starts off groove-laden even with its spiralling solo, and the more timely methodical approach is decidedly modern but fused with a mid-90s bruising mentality. One might anticipate an abundance of complexity, but such levels never really surface. Instead, Ancient Death’s initial whirlwinds tend to subside resulting in a mid-paced album that doesn’t mind nodding towards the likes of Morbid Angel or even Death. Axemen Jerry Witunsky and Ray Brouwer still don’t hold back on the riffs, constructing vast cold walls that burn to the touch and yet which work in tumultuous tandem with Jasmine Alexander’s bass and Derek Malone Moniz’s skin slaps.

Musically, I adore ‘Breathe – Transcend (Into The Glowing Streams Of Forever)’, but I don’t like the vocals, while instrumental ‘Journey To The Inner Soul’ acts as a nice space to breathe. The same can also be said for the meditative ‘Discarnate’ which melts into the busy closer ‘Violet Light Decays’. There are plenty of fluctuations to consider alongside those bleaker peaks and troughs, but Ancient Death does not have the ability to propel me further into the stratosphere. However, I have to take my hat off to admire the fact that the band hasn’t tried to bamboozle me with unnecessary and showy details.

Ancient Death hasn’t boldly gone to alien places where others have feared to tread. Instead, they’ve simply steadied the spaceship.

Neil Arnold

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