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FUNUS
Onen Svet EP

Gates Of Gbell (2023)
Rating: 8/10

I’m a sucker for this sort of bloodcurdling, creeping death metal. This Funus hails from Bratislava in Slovakia and this four-song EP comes a couple of years after an impressive demo. The band’s current line-up features Roxor (vocals), Garlandus (guitar), Magnus (guitar), Tereza (bass) and Šuhaj (drums).

Anyone with a thirst for hefty, chunky and atmospheric riffs will delight in the horrors on show here as the quintet for the most part delivers fusty, mid-paced dank death metal that remains as equally suffocating when the faster trends take over.

While there are hundreds of bands dabbling in murky death metal there are still newer bands entering the fray and blowing me away, and Funus is one of those. Everything about this EP has a brooding atmosphere whether it’s those mid-paced torrents of anguish or the grim vocal sneers, and yet there is an almost grunge-ridden, gloopy melody to proceedings too as the melancholic ooze of ‘Bažina’ filters its own grisly air and exudes a terrifying murk.

Flickers of classic Morbid Angel and Obituary creep in, more so in some of the twisted vocal yawns and perverse riffs, but this is far doomier, far darker and decidedly more evil in its churning. And it’s the word “churning” that really does apply here as ‘Lykan’, even with its gradual ascent into haste, remains such a rank, clogging gloominess. Meanwhile, the closing title track is steeped in a humidity and dungeon-esque hue as the riffs roll like strips of vat stretched across grim walls dripping with pungent mould.

Onen Svet is one of those surprising releases that may, tragically, be passed by, but if you think you’re a death metal fan then you’ll snap this pungent EP up and follow and support these guys until the end of your sorry days.

Neil Arnold

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