I had no idea what to expect when checking out New Jersey’s Replicant, I just had not heard a Transcending Obscurity release in quite a while and while grabbing the killer new Abscession, I checked out Veilburner’s excellent Lurkers in the Capsule of Skull (due to the review here), and Replicant’s second album, Malignant Reality on a whim. And I’m glad I did.

I was greeted with some excellent, otherworldly, shifty, experimental but techy, hefty and more importantly, groovy death metal that culls from the likes of Gorguts and modern Pestilence (Vocalist Mike Gonçalves has some Patrick Mameli to his gruff vocals also, though he tends to get a bit ‘howly’ at times). Throw in some very nice groovy lurches and some early 00s, US spazzy, skronky grindcore/metalcore discordance like The Red Chord, and you get an impressive album that checks a lot of boxes.

Rangy opener “Caverns Of Insipid Reflection” give you a six plus minute glimpse into what’s going to follow for the next 9 tracks and 38 minutes. Notably, the likes of “Excess Womb”, “Death Curse”, slow churning number “Coerced To be”, “Chassis of Deceit”  short but heavy “Dressed For Violence” and almost 9 minute closer “The Ubiquity Of Time” all have some moments of very impressive heft amid the generally mid paced, stuttering discordance and off kilter riffage, and occasional but of weirdness, which is never too out there or left field, but just enough out there to be considered a bit atonally experimental. 

The band can open it up here and there as well, into more straight up blasting tech death as heard on “Relinquish the Self” and “Ektoskull” . The only minor misstep is three minute instrumental “Rabid Future”, where without vocals, things are just a little incomplete for this style, but its a tiny blip on an other wise, mind-warping, but satisfyingly heavy death metal album.

 

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