Outer Heaven

REALMS OF ETERNAL DECAY

RELAPSE PENNSYLVANIA DEATH METALLERS OFFER A NEW DEFINITION OF ‘GROUNDBREAKING’

This has been an almost comically great year for death metal and so it would be easy to overlook Outer Heaven’s full-length debut as just another solid effort in a crowded marketplace. The reality is that there is something subtly fresh about the Pennsylvania quintet’s gruesome, defiantly old-school sound. A faint air of crusty grind permeates two-minute ragers like What Lies Beneath and Tortured Winds, while Pulsating Swarm’s blend of lumbering d-beat, rancorous sludge and demonic blastkrieg is nothing if not bewildering. But it’s the sheer suffocating density of the band’s riffing – most potent on the crushing Multicellular Savagery and the grimly majestic

Bloodspire – that sets this apart from thousands of similarly inclined underground records. When death metal really makes you feel like the ground is opening up and the abyss is beckoning, it’s a righteous thing to behold.

FOR FANS OF: INCANTATION, FATHER BEFOULED, GRAVE

DOM LAWSON