The appearance of another painting by Mariusz Lewandowski on the cover of a metal album is always welcome, and the album on which the one above appears is also welcome, especially because the music is as hauntingly chilling and as frighteningly colorful as the image.
That album, Blessing of Despair, is the Finnish death metal band Devenial Verdict‘s second full-length, following up their daunting Ash Blind from 2022. What we have for you today is a premiere of the third song from the record released so far, evocatively named “Garden of Eyes“.
Primarily on the strength of Ash Blind, Devenial Verdict have already made a name for themselves as purveyors of dissonant, atmospheric death metal that often twists and turns in unexpected directions, and this new song reinforces that reputation and expands it.
The vivid drumwork and eerily ringing chime-like tones that open the song grab attention right damned quick, and so do the jabbing riffage and humongous low-end undulations that follow. Gruesome gurgles, dismal moaning tones, and screeching strings add to the music’s unsettling effects, further enhanced by raw, unhinged howls.
As the fretwork skitters, feelings of tension and incipient insanity further bloom, as the drums boom and the bass heaves below. Dissonant wailing arpeggios trace fear and despair, followed by a feverishly pulsating bridge that leads into harrowing yells, malignant proclamations, a freakishly swirling lead guitar, and a sequence that sounds like a sadistic jackhammer — though the music still grievously moans.
And so, altogether, Devenial Verdict‘s music manages to sound feral and ferocious, menacing and mad, agony-steeped and preternatural — and it’s high-octane headbang fuel too.
Down below you’ll also find streams of the first two songs revealed from the new album, “I Have Become the Sun” and “Moon-Starved“.
The first of those is ravenously assaulting but its ringing, dissonant melody, eerily pinging keyboards, and musing, bone-deep bass lines prove to be strangely mesmerizing. Even more so than the song we’ve just premiered, it displays Devenial Verdict‘s avant-garde ambitions, twisting themselves outside the usual confines of death metal and into fascinating formulations of psychedelia and skin-shivering grandeur.
On the other hand, “Moon-Starved” slows the pace, pounds like giant mallets, and whirs in pain, matched with truly shattering vocal intensity. Doom descends with staggering power, but in the song’s upper reaches, and even more so in a dreamy, prog-minded interlude (where the bass again proves its worth), the music glitters and beckons like the moonshine for which the narrator is starving. Only near the end do feelings of torment and desperation break out, in breathtaking fashion.
The rest of the album is just as out-of-the-ordinary and just as dazzling as the three songs you can now here, with more surprises lying in wait.
DEVENIAL VERDICT is:
Okko Tolvanen – Drums
Sebastian Frigren – Guitars
Antti Poutanen – Bass
Riku Saressalo – Vocals
Blessing of Despair will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on October 4th, in the label’s typically expansive array of formats and with lots of other merch on hand. They recommend the music for fans of: Ulcerate, Morbid Angel, Dysgnostic, Saevus Finis, Crown of Madness, and Mithras.
PRE-ORDER:
https://devenialverdictband.bandcamp.com/album/blessing-of-despair
http://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
http://eu.tometal.com/
DEVENIAL VERDICT:https://facebook.com/DevenialVerdict