I'm shocked that it's already been about a year-and-a-half since the prior EP from D.C. death metal outfit Immortal Form. Since that time, they've secured a new vocalist, but that hasn't altered their approach to gut-churning death metal. Once past the synth-driven instrumental intro, you're in for four songs/about 15 minutes' worth of dense, charging death metal in the vein of a less melodic Bolt Thrower. The vocals are ever-so-slightly more guttural and direct than in the past, too—arguably even harder-hitting without dominating the mix.
"Butchered by Machines" is fairly straightforward and has that undeniably gnarled Realm of Chaos type of tone. "The Abjuration of Human Existence" carries on in similar fashion, but gets a bit more twisted and gnashing with its riffing toward the end, utilizing slower-paced and sludgy breaks with some slicing "arpeggios." "Entombed in Steel" comes across a little "catchier" in its sense of groove, and hints at a bit of mild melody as compared to its predecessors. "Artificial Cerebral Tomb" then exhibits a comparable sense of groove with a bit more tempo variation that veers toward a few higher-speed blasts.
The tracks are delivered using killer production that packs a walloping crunch with just the right amount of nasty ruggedness to the guitars, and mixed such that—to my surprise—you can actually hear the bass playing a significant role in the core density! Everything sounds awesome.
Exterminatus Extremis is limited to 100 cassettes using black ink on purple-ish blue shells along with a double-sided J-card that includes lyrics, photos, and credits beyond the cover art. The lyrics are fairly direct and tend to deal with the rampant destruction of humanity:
This is the consequence / You must now face / Burned to ash / No human remains / False prophets / Have played you a fool / They've led you astray / Now your consciousness is entombed / Your blind devotion has brought forth your doom / Now locked inside this artificial cerebral tomb...
Another damn fine release from Immortal Form and the kind folks at Heavy & Fast. Hopefully they'll crank out a proper full-length at some point in the coming years...?
Get It
- Heavy & Fast Records/Distro (cassette)
- Bandcamp (mp3)
- Apple Music (stream)
- Spotify (stream)
