(Today is the day when the Washington State extreme metal band No Living Witness are releasing a new EP named Aeons of Disintegration, and to help spread the word our contributor Obsolete Mystic is hosting its full streaming premiere, preceded by an enthusiastic review.)
Today’s subject, No Living Witness, caught my attention from the first few seconds of their 2026 single “Dehydrator”. It had elements of Suffocation, Behemoth, Shade Empire, and a good bit of influence from the early work of all those PA-centered death metal bands we were all hyped for, like Rivers Of Nihil and Black Crown Initiate. It caught my attention immediately, and held it, and then I saw the criminally low numbers on their platforms and wanted to both review this EP and also give you readers a chance to hear it yourselves — and so I talked No Living Witness into exclusively streaming Aeons Of Disintegration here on the day of its release.
No Living Witness does something that I don’t think a lot of groups pull off very successfully most of the time, and that is to mix distinct eras of the genres they’re approaching without it sounding disjointed, or like two or more different bands wrote and contributed to the songs. I think that is very hard to do, especially to make it all sound truly cohesive and convincing.
On the instrumental level, death metal especially has changed so much, on top of changing definitions of what we think of when we say it, on top of the incorporation of new instrumental techniques (like the increase in Country style hybrid pick/finger picking and bass-slapping and other percussive techniques like Archspire use) that some band’s releases can turn out sounding like a rambling and disconnected mess.
Because I play guitar, guitar composition always stands out first and foremost when I listen to something new (bass too), and one thing No Living Witness are very good at is creating riffs defined by small motifs they will loop back around to. I’m even a sucker for the big 20-minute progressive epic that goes all the way back to the riffs that opened the song to close it out. No Living Witness do this a lot within their songs. They will revisit a melody or riff in a rearranged fashion, or it’ll be a lead line instead of a riff played over an appropriate riff, and it’s very appealing.
Another appeal lies in their Suffocation-esque serpentine riffing (a band that’s obviously a huge influence). Everything has momentum and a never-ending stuck-in-a-loop feeling which is something Suffocation are always great at. No Living Witness will break that loop in the form of a lot of black metal influence, full of six-string guitar chords and tremolo-picked lead lines. They love using a blackened death metal approach to break up the more focused moments, while the band at their heaviest are channeling something of a combination of Suffocation’s barbarism and Behemoth’s majesty.
This is all complemented by a very modern sense of atmosphere and more melodic epic sections. There’s a lot of Fallujah influence in that regard, the technicality being broken up by gigantic melodic sections with huge chords, some very subtle synths to add some meat, and more melodic riffs that trade in the technicality for a more emotive angle. Besides that Fallujah comparison I’d point to a lot of Dark Tranquillity influence, especially when the melody breaks out. They do a fantastic job of switching gears without it sounding messy. (I know I’m placing a lot of emphasis on this but it really is impressive to me when a band can do this and do it well.)
I’m reminded of another band I wrote about a couple years ago, Cult Of Lilith and their debut Mara. If you liked that record, I think No Living Witness are pulling off something very similar, except where Cult Of Lilith were very thoroughly modern No Living Witness are pulling this off while juxtaposing entirely different eras of death metal and heavy music in general. It’s 2000s-era technical death metal versus 2020s modern prog/death metal.
I’ve focused a lot on the guitar work, but to No Living Witness’s credit, the entire band is stellar. Vocalist LJ’s got a very modern lower-mid-range tonality that drives the impact of everything into your skull like being lobotomized. He’s got a higher-end vocal range he rips out here and there to fit with the black metal sections. The drums carried by Devon has what I like to call an impact-based style of drumming, generating a baseline groove but with a lot of points of emphasis where he’ll break rank. No Living Witness like to do this a lot where they have a very steady groove going and break it up with points of mania and sharp staccato stabs to keep you on your toes. That’s another thing I think you’d probably fit in the more modern camp of tech death.
I am late in discovering No Living Witness, and they may be a late discovery for many of you, but one well-worth getting to know. I hope that this review and the ensuing stream of Aeons Of Disintegration will help them get more notoriety. In an era that feels increasingly like the powers that be are trying to create an anti-art world, it is more important than ever to raise up those artists who are lesser-known. And if you love this EP, you’ll love their two full-lengths prior to this, Holocaust (2019) and Cosmic Simulacra (2021), which are just as great. Thanks for reading.
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https://nolivingwitness.bandcamp.com/album/aeons-of-disintegration
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