GUTVOID - Breathing Obelisk
September 11, 2024, 3 months ago
(Blood Harvest)
I really enjoy the depths that Toronto's Gutvoid plummet to with their death metal, so it was with eager anticipation I put on this four-song mini-LP, and 9:51 opener “Swamp Consumed” did not disappoint with its murky atmosphere and trudging, double-bass-led DM sludge trawl.
And when things pick up, it's just a scissor-beat steamroller, the band shouldering Incantation out of the way—okay, okay, maybe just sliding up next to them—as high authoritarians of this sort of grimy subterranean death. There's so much oppression in the breathing room here, as the song plows on and on and on, not a minute wasted, amazingly.
“For We Are Many”, at a brief 5:52, is a more streamlined and speedy take on death metal, although everything is always jagged, sideways, slippery. And wart's that? A catchy Benante beat halfway through? Oddly, yeah, and it only furthers the disorientation, as does “When The Living Dome Opens” (7:21), with its old-school Earache and classic death/doom hat nods, while closer “Shodar” (7:04) delivers atmospheric guitar heroics and an almost uppity groove to the proceedings.
All hail masters of Canadian labyrinthine DM Gutvoid, again killing it on this awesome release.
