I buy pretty much every new release Deepsend Records puts out and label owner Graham Landers is always giving me recommendations from his label & outside his label.  He knows me and he’s always on the money with his recommendations, which my wife appreciates, with all my cds coming in every week.  I never heard of this small mid-west band, hailing from Wisconsin, the home of some of the best cheese on earth.  Emblazoned play blackened death metal and this is their brand new ep, they having a prior ep and demo, still yet to unleash a full length album.  This is short and to the point.  Not overly produced, organic sounding and the drums are ferocious on this.

One needs not to look any further than the winner of the album, “Refuge in Darkness”.  An unreal pummeling attack that has influences ranging from early Immortal to early Asphyx.  You have the killer black metal guitar sound with the pummeling double bass attack at like the 2.45 mark and this will lop your head off without a problem. The vocals on this are the perfect blend of black metal raspy screams and low end death metal growls, thankfully.  I need my variation vocally speaking, when it comes to blackened death metal and the low end growls add an extra layer of evilness to this.  You get some doom influences on this as well, that simply shine, before the pace picks up and your head is once again flying across the room.

The last track, “In Ex Cathedra”, starts off with a massive headbanging section, before galloping into a thrash beat and Kevin Forsythe’s roars at like the 1.05 mark are fuckin godly.  Sounding similar to Glen Benton with the dual vocals, circa Once Upon the Cross, very pissed off angry and truly stunning.  Song has some stop/start styled blasting on this track that not only mixes things up quite a bit, but then the track fades out with an eerie guitar solo-unexpected.  The ep cover from afar is a bit funny to look at.  I have to admit the pope dude on the front looks like former U.S. president George W. Bush-really, with a bunch of demon dragons that are being summoned towards him, for power, possibly?  Lyrics are also included.  So Graham-where the fuck have you been hiding these bastards, for crissakes, under Brett Favre’s latest text to some unknown girlfriend?  The Living Magisterium is simply a super intense ep that you need to get, NOW!!

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments