GRAVE MIASMA – ABYSS OF WRATHFUL DEITIES (Dark Descent Records)

Howling across the aeons, Grave Miasma’s second full-length, ‘Abyss Of Wrathful Deities’, constitutes a devastating discharge of sepulchral Death Metal, shrouded in cosmic dust, caked in human filth, decadent and cavernous. Comprising eight hefty manifestations of otherworldly horror plus a brief interlude dispersed contemptuously across 53 mind-expanding minutes, the Londoners’ sophomore album is indeed a creation of twisted splendour, reverberating from another time and place, nourishing with one hand and crushing with the other – like the creation and destruction of worlds.

To a degree, although this is obviously still Death Metal to the core, Grave Miasma have almost transcended the subgenre as there’s a foreboding darkness permeating ‘Abyss Of Wrathful Deities’ that’s bordering on soul-destroying. There is no hope to be found amidst these abstract contemplations of meaninglessness and mortality so, to my mind, it’s a celebration of nothingness that owes as much to the spirit of Black Metal as Death Metal.

The ghost of Morbid Angel lingers and traces of Necros Christos are detectable, too, but Grave Miasma have undoubtedly terraformed their own habitat now and have delivered a unique and stellar album that is a law unto itself. The irregular composition and structuring of the songs is both ingenious and effective, the musicianship exemplary, and the organic yet dry and distant production amplifies the spatial disconnect between artist and listener … it genuinely feels that the music is traversing unspecified boundaries of time and space to curse us with its ominous arrival.

Okay, perhaps I’m letting my imagination run away with me a little bit, but there’s no doubting the ethereal, eerie and obscure magnificence of ‘Abyss Of Wrathful Deities’, which is for sure an immersive event and a physical experience as much as it is a collection of songs, conjuring a certain mood and reaching a primordial part of the psyche that only the finest, most hideous and decadent dark art can penetrate.

Evilometer: 666/666