Hideous Divinity – LV-426
Release Date: 23rd April 2021
Label: Century Media Records
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Genre: Technical Death Metal, BlastBeat Widdle-Fest.
FFO: Fleshgod Apocalypse, Decrepit Birth, Unfathomable Ruination.
Review By: Ben Harris-Hayes
HOUR OF PENANCE founding member, Enrico Schettino delivers us another lashing from his HIDEOUS DIVINITY project…this time, armed with a concept based around the 1986 James Cameron action sci-fi epic, ‘Aliens’.
LV-426 is the fictional planetoid where the unlucky heroes of the film touch down and slowly but surely get their asses handed to them by a breed of acid-blood xenomorphic nasties, created by director/writer Ridley Scott.
Great stuff if you’ve not seen it!
Stefan Moribito, who has manned the mixing desk for death metal bands like Fleshgod Apocalypse, Decrepit Birth and Unfathomable Ruination delivers another slice of production here at his 16th Cellar Studio in Rome, Italy.
I found the mix to be a bit muddy to be honest and I was expecting something a bit more shiny and clear like the other bands he’s done…but I am sure that production decision was made for a reason.
Musically, it’s an unwieldy musical beast…but one to be expected from these stellar musicians.
Shifting and swirling between tempos and feels, HIDEOUS DIVINITY have served up another blast of technical death metal and fans of their previous output/related bands will enjoy it, I don’t doubt.
Opening track, ‘Acheron – Stream of Woe’ enters with an attempt at capturing the cinematic epicness of the film in a whirlwind of symphonic sample packs and VST’s. Kodo drums and lavish synths greet us before the pummelling blastbeats and triple picking guitars slap us upside the head to remind us we’re listening to a technical death metal band.
One thing that I quite enjoyed was the dissonant aspects of the musicological approach the band have implemented on this EP. There’s some gnarly near-atonal oddness here and my love of that weirdness greeted it with a wry smile.
But again, the production felt a little mirky and it got lost at times amongst the clatter of the machine-gun, drum-triggered blastbeats.
‘ChestBurster’ rams into us at break-neck speed as the 2nd track on this EP with a near-black metal-esque lick that segues into a Nile-inspired blast-fest. The NILE comparison on this track was something that I couldn’t quite get past. Not a bad thing I guess, but I just kept hearing Dallas Toller-Wade and Karl Sanders leering in the background.
The final track on the EP was somewhat of an eyebrow-raising cover of ‘Delirium Trigger’ by COHEED AND CAMBRIA.
I’m familiar with the original and pretty much expected the cover to be similar structurally but only with added blastbeats and guttural vocals…and that was how it turned out to be.
I won’t lie…overall, this release didn’t particularly move me and I found myself just waiting for something to grab me throughout all the tracks.
I cannot see myself digging it out again once I’m done with the multiple listens for this review…but perhaps that is a good thing? Solidly played, super-fast, blasting is certainly something that hardened DM fans love and this EP won’t let them down if they’re looking for a ‘down the barrel’ blast-fest.
It’s immaculately performed and the technical instrumental feats are without doubt here, but it just lacked something to raise it above the many other bands doing this whole gazillion miles per hour blast-a-thon style of death metal.
I will give two pre-final ratings, because it’s only fair I do.
Younger me who still loves technical DM gives it 3/5 – Because kick-drumzzz go BRRRRR…HURR HURR.
Current me, who craves something a bit more, gives it 2/5.
Thusly, mathematically, it’s a…
(2.5 / 5)
