Review by Sandre the Giant
Sometimes you just need to get your arse kicked by something brutally heavy don’t you? Well, that was me today and I found this; North Carolina’s The Atrophic and their new EP, ‘Coagulating Mirth’. It is out in July through the band’s Bandcamp.
After the suitably stirring, string led intro section of the opening title track, like the orchestra of the damned setting the scene for the destruction to come, a detonation of technical death metal occurs. Riffs spiral in all directions, accompanied by a solid low end engine and a ragged, savage shriek. Drawing from the likes of The Black Dahlia Murder and Rivers of Nihil, the musicianship is excellent but never feels too showy. There’s also a heavy dose of atmospheric work as well, giving the whole exercise a gloomy shroud. ‘Misery’s Grip’ follows with a barrage of death metal fury, rampant double kicks providing the saturation bombing as lead melodies cascade over the brutality. A strong follow up, followed by an even stronger track in the labyrinthine ‘Vessels for the Oligarchs’, which combines pit-destroying heaviness and superb dynamic shifts.
Closing with ‘Horrid Mortal Tendrils’, a monstrously dynamic chugging behemoth, ‘Coagulating Mirth’ is a potent four track blast of modern death metal, surgically executed and full of interesting diversions. Not content to just barrel straight ahead at full force, The Atrophic experiment with more melodic and gloomy sections, layering in a lot of atmosphere without detracting from the tech death maelstorm that they’ve come to perfect. More than worth a listen.
https://www.facebook.com/theatrophic
https://theatrophic.bandcamp.com/releases
The Killchain 