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DISENGAGEMENT
Formless In A Violent World EP

Dry Cough (2023)
Rating: 8.5/10

According to the ever brilliantly prolific Dry Cough Records press release, new death metal act Disengagement hails from “various points between Liverpool and Manchester” as well as claiming that the band “have arrived with something a little different”, before asking “when was the last time you heard a death metal band play in E-standard?” The press release rounds off by stating: “Expect no cavernous sound, technical sections or blast beats here, just four punishing tracks of ripping death metal”.

The label couldn’t have put it any better because this debut EP, dressed up like some early 90s demo, comes at you like a rabid beast but still has time to entice you into its lair with tasty, melodious leads. Slower segments chug with a foul menace as the band combs the filthy shores of first wave death metal, a place once inhabited by Sepultura and Obituary as opener ‘Black Hole Horizon’ proves.

Disengagement appears quite straight laced on the surface, but within the folds there is a little more going on as those Hellhammer / Celtic Frost sprigs are mixed in with dollops of Finnish aplomb. It’s catchy but fierce, and yet delivered from an underground stance as ‘Permafrost’ traipses like Celtic Frost at their most ghoulish.

‘Deathdealer’ is far pacier and raw yet still finds time to dip into that murky abyss of grim slogging. Meanwhile, the closing title track continues the sluggish trudge and comes riddled with a deathly doominess that suffocates the soul as the leads squirm to escape the black mass of consuming silt while the percussion labours like a morose, tolling churchyard bell. The pace eventually quickens to an Autopsy-styled rant led by slurping vocals before resorting back to that dirty trudge.

Ripping death metal it most certainly is but with more silted layers to contend with and it remains just as putrid as a majority of bands out there. A full-length album cannot come soon enough for me.

Neil Arnold

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