(written by Islander)
In August of this year the Ottawa-based death metal band Harvested released their debut album Dysthymia. We were very happy to help spread the word in advance of the release by premiering a playthrough video for one of the album’s most electrifying groove-monsters, a song called “Synaptic Confusion” — very happy, because the album is such a killer release.
We weren’t the only people who thought so. Lots of other metal writers and fans have heaped praise on it both before and after its release. But of course, because Harvested is an independent and unsigned band there’s undoubtedly a lot of people who still don’t know what they’ve missed. We’ll make a further effort to help clue them in today with another video premiere, this time for a song off Dysthymia called “Gathered and Deluded“.
For newcomers, Dysthymia is an album that thematically delves into the complexities of mental illness and its ominous connection to the human psyche. Harvested previewed the specific song in the upcoming video in these words: “This is the Slamming death metal track of the album, with a slight touch of old-school and guitar influences from bands like Cattle Decapitation. This song describes the darker realities of cults and essentially creates a hive mind of the mentally deranged.”
This is the kind of death metal you can imagine would punch holes through concrete walls if played loud enough, but it’s also a manifestation of frightening derangement. The music brutishly slugs and furiously clobbers, but the guitars also squeal, shriek, boil, and broil. The vocals shriek too, but also fanatically roar and rapidly bark like some hell-spawned mastiff, keeping pace with the turbocharged fretwork.
The rhythm section generate one destructive fusillade after another while the guitars maniacally pulsate and dart about like ravenous demons on fire. It’s all mad, it’s all exhilarating, it’s all pulverizing.
The video, filmed by Samuel Surace-Dumont during the band’s live performance at Petite Campus in Montreal on September 26th of this year, not only documents the intense energy of a Harvested live performance but is also edited in a way that matches up very well with the song’s raging insanity.
HARVESTED ALBUM LINEUP:
Adam Semler – Vocals
Mitchi Dimitriadis – Guitars
Vitto Oh – Guitars
Eric Forget – Bass
Jacob Collins – Drums
HARVESTED LIVE LINEUP:
Adam Semler – Vocals
Mitchi Dimitriadis – Guitars
Vitto Oh – Guitars
Eric Forget – Bass
Nick Rodgers – Drums
Dysthymia was produced by Harvested with mixing and mastering by Joe Lyko of Darkmoon Productions, and it features artwork by CJ Bertram. It can be downloaded and streamed via the locations linked below, and it’s recommended for fans of Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Cattle Decapitation, and Decapitated.
STREAM AND DOWNLOAD:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/harvested1/dysthymia
https://harvested.bandcamp.com/album/dysthymia
FOLLOW HARVESTED:
https://www.instagram.com/harvestedband
https://www.facebook.com/harvested666