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TENTACULT
Lacerating Pattern

Transylvanian Recordings (2023)
Rating: 8.5/10

I missed the demo this Sacramento, California-based bunch put out in 2021, but I’m hoping to make up for that by lending an ear and reviewing this debut full-length platter from the four-piece. With Lacerating Pattern you get six tracks of what at times is slightly overlong death metal, but one cannot help to be sucked in by the cover art alongside those evil, guttural vocals from Anton Em.

I guess by 2023 standards this sort of cavernous and occasionally technical death metal is somewhat old hat, just because the scene appears to be shifting through so many differing directions with many acts becoming extremely slimy and swampy by design. Even so, this opus is a very rewarding affair that comes built upon slower, doomier segments which at times reek of a cosmic dissonance, although there are plenty of hastier retreats into otherworldly tumult too.

One gets the impression that Tentacult is trying to do something different, where the atmosphere of this record feels cold and expansive; an ideal soundtrack then to falling into the black chasms of spasm not knowing what alien terrors are in search of flesh.

The opening 12-minute slab ‘Primordial Cult – Litany Of Relict Caverns’ features some interesting slow-motion droning and eerie chants before progressing to sturdy chugging. ‘Seismic Assault’, however, begins with an almost thrashy sizzle before the combo embarks on a grey journey of gnashing rhythms.

There is clearly something well thought out and measured about this intergalactic act of the grotesque, and the more I listen the more I feel as though I can give further credit. Fans of the likes of Tomb Mold will no doubt dig the atmosphere of this pallid expression, but for me the band comes into its own with those slower, foreboding moments such as the gruelling entrance of ‘Obsidian Blade’ and parts of the cold yet majestic ‘Into Astral Crypt’ that stirs with avant-garden starkness.

The more this album is played the blacker and bleaker it gets as the combo at times almost promises to veer into early 90s tech-death but instead blankets the listener in a layer of otherworldly ice. Lacerating Pattern is certainly a grower and one which, strangely, I keep playing back to back with Thorn and Nothingness which pretty much sums up the glacial and galactic nature of its layers.

Neil Arnold

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