NEKUS – Death Apophenia

vote
7.5

• Bands:
  NEKUS
• Duration: 00:41:10
• Available from: 11/15/2024
• Label:

• Sentient Ruin

Just enough time to put together a new batch of songs, and here, a year after the previous “Sepulchral Divination”, Nekus returns to travel the deadly roads of death/doom, releasing a new dose of music with “Death Apophenia”. cavernous and putrescent.
Already in their debut album, the German band had been able to deepen their suffocating load with some prodigious bursts of speed that also forcefully return in their new work, centered more than ever on a doctrine faithful to death metal and its most orthodox mechanics.
“Cadaverous Periphery” naturally sets the atmosphere on a slow, otherworldly progression, but it is precisely on the explosion of the drums that the piece comes to life, supported by a stormy drumming and a vocal assault mainly in growl, but capable of letting itself be influenced by musical developments by adding sometimes some more awkward lines with an unnatural flavour. “Noxious Furor” also shows a progressive evolution that starting from the sinister blows on the initial eardrums, hooks up to a dark evocation supported by the guitars, up to the long central part based on the blast-beat and the sharp lines of the instruments.
If up to this point we have been crushed by the oppressive power of the production and the ardor with which we relate to the composition, with “Accursed Murmur” we certainly witness an intermediary halt, according to a more traditional and linear piece that is ultimately less incisive. The group's ability to exalt itself in contrasts emerges with “Unetterable Prophecies”, the fastest and at the same time the slowest song of the setlist, where it is possible to masterfully tame particularly incisive temporal collapses, significant counterpoints in a pulsating miasmatic flow of slow death metal. “Erichthea” concludes the infernal descent with a sumptuous funereal structure, adorned with the best possible solutions and capable of passing through different riffs and tones without ever losing sight of the catacomb horizon of the entire discographic composition.
Through ultra-human distortions and reverberations, tons of double pedals and distant ritualistic invocations, Nekus manage to hit the target this time by simply insisting on their more old-school vocation, according to a less 'experimental' inspiration than their previous work, but capable of sustain and renew itself in the very fury of its elements and thanks to a primordial strength that makes “Death Apophenia” a sincere and dark example of modern and inspired death/doom.