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HALLUCINATE
From The Bowels Of The Earth

Caligari (2023)
Rating: 8/10

It’s time to strap yourself in for some psychedelic and psychotic death metal delivered from the twisted psyche of relatively new German band Hallucinate. Expect to find these dudes present at an extreme metal orgy that includes Morbus Chron and Wharflurch; a kaleidoscopic cesspool dripping with cavernous echoes and trippin’ between mushrooms of doom and psychological trauma.

Foul, bestial and yet somehow served up in vibrant, violent Technicolor, this startling debut seeps with cosmic horror, creeps with ethereal surrealism and atmospherically haunts the listener with its tormented tumult. Opener ‘A Universe Obscure’ feels expansive even in its cold, airy blasts of bleakness. The bowels these guys inhabit seem far from humid, swampy and murky. Instead, there is a chill in the air as the torrents of percussion act as vile draughts of menacing chaos.

Vocally, the approach is standard dehydrated gasps of horror as ‘Blackened Gills’ delivers hypnotic swirls of riffs. This is an album all about the feel; strange blizzards of belligerence which contort perversely to collide with otherworldly vapour trails and yet it’s not exactly progressive or intricate in design. What’s clear here are the dynamics and ingredients with which the members create; dark foreboding flurries of ghastly, ghoulish force. Even so, the moody psychedelics within give this opus a majestic and esoteric air.

The cold and stark ‘Paracletus’ seems to employ a sitar within its icy mists, while ‘AION’ offers some mid-tempo crushing. But focus on any cut, whether it’s the decidedly groovy ‘Crimson Rain’ or the diverse ‘Black Smokers’, and you’ll be transfixed by the unorthodox nature of the structures as Hallucinate drifts seamlessly from subtle and tactical nuances to more ashen and grotesque pounding.

From The Bowels Of The Earth is far from being an instantly accessible outing due to those unusual amalgamations, but it’s not as if this is a mind-bending opus to the point of being avant-garde. However, it remains heavily peculiar and often alien in its extremities.

Neil Arnold

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