Review by Sandre the Giant
The second album from Australia’s Depravity, (no not one of the other SIX bands with the same moniker) ‘Grand Malevolence’ has just arrived in time for the festive season. Unfortunately, it looks like its tech death maelstorm is here to destroy the halls with bouts of carnage. It is out now through Transcending Obscurity.
Straight out, this album is obscenely brutal. I mean listen to that opener. ‘Indulging Psychotic Thoughts’ is an endlessly inventive stream of death metal riffing, while the guttural growls and pounding drums struggle to keep up. The title track is half Decapitated, half Suffocation in its intensity and technicality. The world shakes under the feet of the gruesome ‘Cantankerous Butcher’, where brutality meets shredding in the bloodiest of fashions. Depravity’s technical chops never prevent this record being as heavy as humanly possible though. Probably helps that they share a label with some of this year’s finest death metal contenders, that must ramp up the competition for quality. ‘Castrate the Perpetrators’ has a magnificent chug about it, while the rip and tear mentality of the rampant ‘Hallucination Aflame’ is a personal highlight. In fact, you’d struggle to find even a single moment here that doesn’t immediately make you want to shred your air guitar like the ghost of Chuck.
‘Grand Malevolence’ is a record of supreme technical death metal brutality. A late in the year contender for those best death metal lists, Depravity have followed up on the potential of their debut with aplomb. This is the kind of shit that will destroy crowds when we’re allowed out again. I cannot fucking wait.
https://www.facebook.com/Depravitydestroy
https://depravityaustralia.bandcamp.com
The Killchain 