Review
The Toronto quartet’s sophomore LP eschews the typical low-end murk of abyss-dwelling death metal for a surprisingly bright, celestial focus on elaborate progressive structures. Rejecting predictable genre tropes, the band offsets heavy tempos with highly agile, soaring guitar solos and dynamic shifts.
Critics have widely praised the crucial balance between cerebral technicality and primal aggression. Nine Circles lauded the band's ability to interweave "soaring progressive lead work" with "the kind of stupid-ass caveman shit that makes me forget how to do basic math." It is a formula that successfully avoids stale repetition by injecting "weird little moments into the blanket fort of death metal."
Sonically, the album’s expansive, mid-paced architecture conjures vivid, alien environments. Tracks like "Of Smothering Sea" find Gutvoid’s "Demilichian current blinking its thousand slime eyed froth into crookedly steering grooves," as Mystification Zine noted. The result is a challenging yet accessible work of cosmic death metal that stands out for its clarity of vision and ultimate compositional purpose.
