Hallucinating Cannibals

METAL

Outer Heaven

Realms of Eternal Decay

Pennsylvania death metal newcomers Outer Heaven have impressed the extreme community in their short time together through top-notch live performances and spectacular releases, such as their Diabolus Vobiscum EP or their four-way split with Gatecreeper, Homewrecker and Scorched. Five years into their career, the band have finally unleashed their full-length debut, and Realms of Eternal Decay does not disappoint. Starting things off with some ominous vibes, the band rip into meaty old-school death metal riffs on “Vortex of Thought.” They pick up the pace on songs such as “What Lies Beneath” or “Bloodspire” while intertwining mid-tempo knuckle-dragging caveman riffs that make their speedier moments stand out. The band’s approach to death metal brings to mind Incantation or Vile- era Cannibal Corpse, focusing on brutality through solid riffs instead of relying solely on speed.

The record also has a fantastic concept. Bringing a horror and sci-fi feel through a loose story of a bacterial infection that causes the planet’s inhabitants to hallucinate and have a lust for murdering and consuming each other, the record delivers an interesting narrative that enhances the songs. Realms of Eternal Decay is a phenomenal album that takes the best aspects of old-school death metal, combined with hints of black metal, under a modern sound umbrella. They’ve set themselves up to be one of the most exciting emerging death metal acts to watch. (Relapse)

What inspired the album’s concept?

Vocalist Austin Haines: Something I had written early on got us onto the conversation about something called the “stoned ape” theory, which says psilocybin mushrooms and hallucinogens were a major turning point in the evolution of human beings and human creativity, speech, language, fine thinking and stuff like that.

Do you feel your recorded material finally matches the band’s live energy?

For the first time in any of our recorded material, I can honestly say yes, because that was a problem we had. When it came time to record the album for Relapse, we made it a really strong point to keep the elements of the production high-energy and really explosive, like we would sound live.