(written by Islander)
Here’s part of how the Sentient Ruin label attempts to prepare its victims listeners for Rivalry of Thy Self, the debut album of Prophetic Suffering:
We’re extremely proud to announce the sanguinary return of Edmonton-based bestial death metal sadists Prophetic Suffering. In under a half hour the Canadian horde bring forth a violent and dark monstrosity forged by an abysmal convergence between Blasphemy’s war-torn black metal terror with the gruesome and gore-infested death metal of Cannibal Corpse albums like The Bleeding and Tomb of the Mutilated.
But wait, there’s more:
Foremost, a pervasive and weaponized use of modern black metal and technical death-derived dissonance compounding into a torrent of gnarled and atonal fretwork destruction. A mind-expanding contrast is created where the guitar work stretches forward to embrace a mutating modernity still in becoming, while the rest of the band regresses backward into a primeval pandemonium of carpet-bombing hammer blasts, searing basslines, and soul-tearing death grunts.
How are we supposed to compete with this kind of rhetoric??? Anyone with a lick of sense would just raise the white flag, shut up, and insert the player for the album track we’re premiering today — the aptly named “Foul“. However, any sense we might have had was catastrophically destroyed by the song, so here we go!
“Foul” is the name of the song, and foul are its sounds — from the churning corrosiveness of the flesh-eating riffage to the noxiousness of the torture-chamber vocals, which range from bowel-loosening gutturals to strangled, gurgling screeches. The drumming is less foul and more brutally bludgeoning, and you’ll feel the throb of the bass down in your bone marrow on which it is feeding.
Yes indeed, the sounds are gruesome and gore-infested. But before the end of this compact abomination the band also send the guitar screaming toward the rafters, creating a crazed and paranormal spectacle, an electrifying delirium augmented by a burst of swirling fretwork that also sounds gloriously demented.
It’s one of those songs that doesn’t last long, but long enough to make fans of fiendish music wish it were longer, to see what would happen if the band took those final bat-winged 15 seconds and flew further with it.
Rivalry of Thy Self was mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air, and it features hellish cover art by @demoniarch. Sentient Ruin will release the album on LP, CD, MC, and digital formats worldwide, all of which are pre-orderable now along with newly launched on-demand merch.
For more info, check the links below — and also lend your mangled ears to the previously released album track “Gift of Decay“, which had its premiere at Decibel.
That one is still compact, though longer than the song we premiered today. It too is a primitive and ruthless ravager (and an even bigger head-mover), but it too shows what this band can do when they run with extra time, much of it devoted to a narcotic, black-magic guitar solo over a jumping punk-ish beat just before a final bout of eviscerating riffage and mortar-fire grooves.
PRE-ORDER:
https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/rivalry-of-thyself
http://sentientruin.com/releases
PROPHETIC SUFFERING:
https://www.facebook.com/p/Prophetic-Suffering-100078037340537/