CHESTCRUSH – ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ
Release Date: 4th April 2025
Label: Independent
Bandcamp
Genre: Blackened Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal.
FFO: Dead Congregation, Convulsing, Teeth, Immolation, Of Feather and Bone, Altarage, Ulcerate, Belphegor.
Review By: Andy Spoon
ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ (“Psy-kho-vghal-tees”) is derived from the Greek “soul extractor” or in the colloquial term “mindfuck”, which is honestly metal as hell. I honestly don’t think I can pronounce it, but that’s not going to stop me from furious use of the copy/paste function. When I got a chance to hear the intro/debut track for this album when given some selections, I was immediately grabbed by the absolute evil and brutality that ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ seems to exude, sweating out of every pore of its being. It’s patently misanthropic, sludgy at times, howling like a swarm of bees at others, and simultaneously offers a well-recorded sonic experience from a production viewpoint with a dynamite stereo mix. ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ is a self-released album set to debut on April 4, 2025.
One of the first things you’ll notice about the album is that the guitars just have this fat, ugly fuzz effect that harkens to some of the lowest, heavy-bottomed sludge metal or doom, forming the lower register of the guitars. The other half of the guitars are a higher register dissonant/noise riff-centric accent section that is meant to give a haunting harmonic to the lower, muddy guitars. The combination of the two is really overwhelming, giving the listener the effect of simply being waylaid by tone. In many ways, it features a beautiful dissonant harmonic, but also just portrays a level of noise that is sometimes reminiscent of heavy electronic music, almost being part of the rhythm section, rather than musical.
This is obviously something that’s not new in noise music, which is aptly-named. I have enjoyed these elements in black metal, which tend to generally follow the musical side of the dissonant spectrum. ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ leans further into the noise side, the death metal spilling over through the absolutely insane vocal attack, which features three or four unique profiles that just end up feeling sonically-perfect when aligned with the fuzz of the rhythm section. Further, the drums are expertly-recorded and mastered, making the technical aspects of the drum sections totally spectacular to listen to on repeated listens. Specifically, the drums are split into an exhilarating left/right mix, giving the listener a total roller coaster ride of stereophonic bliss.
The total run time of the album is around 41 minutes, which hits that sweet spot for LPs in the genre. I think that it’s hard to feature too much content on an album that’s similar to this, not that you would need a break, but more so that the overall tone can start to taper off as you approach the hour mark. Given that Chestcrush didn’t try and mix several interlude tracks, or meaningless “atmosphere” tracks that don’t add anything to the overall experience, I’m very happy with the run time and the furious, relentless assault of the album. I think that this is going to reach out to a huge swathe of fans of extreme music, whether it be death metal, blackened death, noise, or even doom. ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ is just jam-packed with personality and purely maniacal tone.
I just think that everything hits just right on ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ. The vocals, the guitar, the drums, the blistering pace, they all have been expertly-mixed to create an album that is absolutely, positively going to be contending for my favor at the end of the year. What’s more impressive is that it’s released without the help of a record label, making me all the more impressed that the band’s artistic direction and tone was so-expertly-translated, at least to my ears. This is one of those albums that I sincerely-hope everyone has the opportunity to check out, even if you aren’t necessarily a fan of noise/death. This is just pure satisfaction in dissonance, having both ends of a spectrum covered, a jagged edge on a blunt blade, a sonic cannonball to the chest. I think that it’s a total shame that more people aren’t talking about how good this band is. I will consider it an affront to the heavy music scene if Chestcrush isn’t springboarded into the bigger and better things after ΨΥΧΟΒΓΑΛΤΗΣ.
(5 / 5)
