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FACELESS BURIAL
At The Foothills Of Deliration

Me Saco un Ojo / Dark Descent / Desiccated Productions (2022)
Rating: 8.5/10

Arguably Faceless Burial’s most adventurous outing to date, At The Foothills Of Deliration comes equipped with an atmospheric synth backbone but for the most part drowns the listener in a strange, engaging mix of vibrancy, subtlety, complexity and extremity.

Firstly, let’s talk about the fantastic axe work from Füj who creates vast walls of intoxicating riffage while also weaving through the gauze with deft touches of intricacy. Then we have bassist Alex Macfarlane’s deep bellows, but most importantly, his devious bass licks squirm in tandem with the nefarious, quizzical percussive splays of drummer Max Kohane. Yep, the Australian band’s third full-length outing – for all of its meaty downpours – is incredibly atmospheric, multi-layered and challenging with its complexity.

Opening track ‘Equipoise Recast’ pretty much sums this record up; a swirling kaleidoscope that bewilders in its spine-crushing wizardry while also serving up dish after dish of exquisite changes and alterations that numerous revisits are demanded. In fact, I played this song eight times before moving on to the rest of the album, and then I treated each track accordingly, devoting time and focus to their inner workings because when you hear what seems like a simplistic chug of a track such as ‘A Mire Of Penitence’, you still discover varying other levels deep down.

On first listen you may find this record inaccessible, and yet it’s not as if it’s shifting towards jazzy premises or a Gorguts thinness, it’s just that these guys have clearly spent time assembling this network of passages to create such a dense arrangement. You’ll find plenty of heavy, chuggy segments coupled with angular, abrasive flairs – as showcased with ‘A Mire Of Penitence’ – but there are so many twists that by the time you’ve reached closing track ‘Redivivus Through Vaticination’ you’ll immediately want to step back in from the start. My path led me towards the bass work, then second time round the drums and then finally the guitar, just to appreciate the qualities of each instrument.

‘Dehiscent’ features some of the band’s fastest blasts, but then again there are mid-tempo slabs of dissonant anguish to behold too. It is brainy death metal riddled with shifts and striking patterns and yet through all the bewildering tempos and moods there remains a chunky, atmospheric old school battery even when a track such as ‘From The Bastion To The Pit’ lumbers.

At The Foothills Of Deliration is a sick and twisted affair for the perverted souls who like to bathe in what is at times self-indulgent, complicated yet multi-layered death metal.

Neil Arnold

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