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PIOUS LEVUS
Beast Of The Foulest Depths

Warfare Noise Productions (2018)
Rating: 5/10

Featuring former members of Thornspawn, Hod and Burial Shroud comes San Antonio, Texas-based blasphemous breed Pious Levus with their debut half-hour of annihilation. Beast Of The Foulest Depths, in spite of its venomous speed and lairy looseness, seems completely bereft of weight, however.

Production-wise, this is a strange record; the band rattle relentlessly with their vicious brand of blackened death lashes, but clearly the bass and drums were left at home as we’re treated to 11 songs that simply have no spine. Imagine if you will that someone had stolen your bass and treble buttons from your stereo because that’s exactly how this opus operates, and it’s a glaring fault that’s difficult to look past.

Anyway, what is on offer are a selection of loose ‘n’ lethal spits including ‘Nameless Cruciforms’, the hammering title track, ‘Desolate Dreams Of Burial Hymns’, ‘Hellborn Host’ and ‘Conquered Swine’. All are fast licks of hellish intent, but how can any mood be created when Necroinferno’s percussion is just so distant and the bass pretty much omitted?

In fact, Beast Of The Foulest Depths just feels unfinished, almost slapdash in its creation and with too many rather generic expressions of violence which for the most part seem to melt into one another with no real effect. The vocal outbursts are typically dehydrated and soot-coated, but the music in general has a hostile hiss that displays just too much fragility. It’s as if, because that backbone has been removed, that at any minute the whole affair could just combust into a sorry heap of ash.

All of the tracks are relatively short, as expected with such a brief duration for an album. The only ones which get their talons in are the slow, churning menace of ‘Crimson God Possession’, the tinny rush of ‘Encursing Invader’ and the ominous strains of ‘Daemon Xusha’s Invocation’, but if Pious Levus are attempting to recreate an early Bathory-styled lo-fi noise then they’ve kind’ve failed miserably. In this instance, the record sounds weak rather than obscure, and sounds thin rather than cavernous.

For all of its attempted might, Beast Of The Foulest Depths just feels so frail; the guys behind it fail to create a wall of insidious clamour, instead replacing it with a sort of hapless racket that has the effect of a sack of tin cans being shook for too long. That’s a shame. With some extra padding and meatiness, Pious Levus’ debut racket would have been a noteworthy expression of black / death horror, but instead I’m left pointing the finger at the producer… or has someone pulled a wire on my speakers?

Neil Arnold

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