vote
7.0
- Band:
Blood Monolith - Duration: 00:27:42
- Available from: 16/05/2025
- Label:
-
Profound Lore
Streaming not yet available
Increasingly prominent name of the extreme American underground, given his involvement in reality very respected such as Ulthar, Thanatotherion, Human Corpse Abuse and – above all – Nails, the singer/guitarist Shelby Lermo certifies the exuberance and explosiveness of his pen with the Blood Monolith, a project that, completed by Tommy Wall (Undeath, guitar), Nolan (Genocide Pact, bass) and Aidan Angelo (Deliriant Nerve, drums), sees him painting a sort of surrealist picture based on wide -ranging Death metal 'and hardcore/grind slags.
A sound that the artwork of Nick Blinko, leader of the historical British Anco-Punk Rudimentary Peni, introduces in the best way in accordance with the listener, and that the quartet-which could also be seen as a small 'All Star Band', given the experience of the musicians called into question-interprets satisfying a feverish creativity from which the riffs and ideas seem to arise in an incessant way, Food by a enthusiasm that (in fact) has more than something to be shared with the Grindcore world.
A flow so whirlpool and furious, as muscle and percussive, in which leorma and companions, like a centrifuge, chopped and replace a series of ideas from the great Death Metal season of the nineties, and then cut the fruit of their efforts with lysergic acid and give the whole a hallucinated and apocalyptic character.
Abrasive and dense songs that are almost all of them on the two/three minutes of duration, demonstrating a songwriting devoted to concision, rather than verbosity, in which it is possible to see both the typical brutal system of suffocation and first Cryptopsy/Cannibal Corpsse, and the tortuous and jagged approach of alchemists such as Demilich and Morbid Angel (the cornerstone of the Concluding “Pyroklesis”, a real tribute to the inheritance of Trey Azagthoth), for an overall result where the change of time and shades – on derailing speeds – is the master.
Barbara music, therefore, but which requires a certain dose of attention to be properly assimilated, although the brevity of the tracklist and the use of some Thrashening lunges (which could even bring to mind certain deicides) help in metabolization.
On balance, although the focus of the latest tests of the Ulthar is not replicated by this “The Calling of Fire”, also here the taste and personality of Lermo do not slow each other, giving the impression that in the future, with a further chisel work on the structures, sometimes a little too excessive and frenetic, the band can score an important blow.
However, the fact remains that the one entered on the market by Profound Lore is an interesting debut; A disc that does not try to seduce the public neither through a stereotyped and traditional image, nor by calculating the hand on virtuosity and experiments, but playing concrete, dirty and free from most of the contemporary death metal logic.
If in recent times you have followed and appreciated the career of the Californian musician, probably “The Calling …” will not disappoint you.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
