RSS Feed


SHROUDED INFINITY
Through Caverns Unknown EP

Transylvanian Recordings (2022)
Rating: 9/10

The debut offering from this Louisville, Kentucky-based band is going to be one of the year’s heaviest releases.

Through Caverns Unknown features five tracks of death / black / doom, simple as that; crushing, cavernous pounding from the opening gnawing ooze of ‘Depths Of Kur’ with its blackened mesmeric sluggishness.

Thick globular chunks are coughed out within rivers of congealed treacle as Shrouded Infinity heave and puff, creating gargantuan oil sticks of pus and vomit. The percussion hammers through the layers of peat, the guitar tone weaves in sickening gore and the vocals demand attention with such grisly aplomb.

Shrouded Infinity does nothing out of the ordinary, but the sheer weight is what forces you to submit. The drums are on another plateau; belligerent bangs and booms echo like thunder claps around the cavern walls.

There’s something unearthly about this whole composition, where flashes of Obituary, Morgoth – more so in vocals – mix with that strong, modern mouldy death metal sound.

The pacier ‘Equivocal Life Forms’ brings thickening waves of evil as mid-paced drudgery commence, while the title track has to be the finest moment of the release; a classic, dragging mid-paced bloody chunk of darkness. The latter composition is utterly bleak and blank, esoteric and crushing heavy.

In contrast, ‘Cloud Of Souls’ picks up the pace, but there’s always those dank moments of melancholy. ‘Innermost Of Being’ combines those anomalous aesthetics again, with angular rhythms hinting at black metal dissonance, doomy passages of suffocating trudging and those classic death metal patterns. It’s all encompassing, and with that percussive horror as its heartbeat.

This is one of the darkness, most hypnotically evil cacophony you’ll hear this year and beyond.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share