Dwellers Of The Twilight Void

vote
7.5

• Bands:
  DESOLUS
• Duration: 00:36:02
• Available from: 05/15/2026
• Label:

• Hells Headbangers

Two years ago, the Americans Desolus made their long-distance debut with a clear and rough declaration of love for vintage thrash metal. Sodom, Kreator, Slayer (the first Slayer): these are the three points of reference of “System Shock”, a conglomeration of crudeness and madness, centered on the infinite discharge of riffs, tight rhythms and a voice, that of the frontman and guitarist Jimmy Frost, calibrated on Schmier's Teutonic frequencies, further ungainly in the higher parts. We had promoted ours, despite noting little creative effort, hoping for a little more courage in view of the next releases.

Today, thanks to the new “Dwellers Of The Twilight Void”, we have the opportunity to feel the pulse of the American band and understand whether the required audacity has found its realization or not.
That something has changed within the Washington DC lineup can be easily understood by simply looking at the current size of the line-up: the peremptory power trio has in fact given way to a more lethal, in this case, quartet: specifically, Travis Stone (former live guitarist of Cavalera Conspiracy) has given up the drum seat to take up the six strings, giving way behind the drums to Bileh Dougsiyeh, a native of Djibouti.
The result of this numerical enhancement resulted in something even more feral: the predictable hypothesis of a somewhat more square disk was supplanted by an additional extremization, aggravating what was produced in the first work.
The devoted lessons learned by heart by Slayer (honoured here by a decent version of “Show No Mercy”) were in fact modeled downwards, calling into question names such as Merciless, Massacra and Sadus, rippling the melodic cuts in favor of excruciating riffs, chased by the continuous tupa-tupa, on which Frost's deformed bark bit his invectives, moving the aim towards assaults closer to the matrix black.
The first five songs are powerful: from the intro in perfect 80s horror film style to the mangy “Threading the Atom”, Desolus demonstrate that they know how to push endlessly without ever losing control, adding nauseating solos and graceful midtempos, with “The Pact (Sealed in Blood)” playing the role of the supporting piece with the most vigorous impact.

For its part, the nervous roar of “Woman Of Infernal Beauty” hides heavy elements, outclassed by the sonic aggression exploded by the four musicians, as if prey to authentic splinters of madness: it also constitutes the last truly impactful piece of “Dwellers Of The Twilight Void” as the remaining episodes, while guaranteeing the same rate of truculent madness, do not add further points of interest, slightly hampering the overall performance of the work.
What matters however, as underlined in our comments on their first release, is the taking of responsibility, or more simply the desire to go further, expressed by the American band, capable of deriving the features of the old school, giving it even more vigor and rawness – and we can only applaud the good result, waiting – we hope – for the definitive leap in quality.