Unique Leader has been heavy on the deathcore/downtempo so far in early 2021 with 2 conceptual EPs from Distant (both a bit underwhelming), Australia’s to To The Grave and their debut, Humanity’s Last Breath,  and this the second release from the UKs Bound In Fear, and boy it is  a doozy.

Distant might have been the label’s flagship downtempo deathcore band after 2019 killer Tyrannotophia, but Bound in Fear‘s debut, The Hand of Violence, nipped at its heels, and with Eternal, Bound In Fear have leapfrogged Distant, by a considerable margin. While Distant has released 2 EPs within months of each other (Dawn of Anguish and Dusk of Corruption) , Eternal blows them both away.

Still, this downtempo/beatdown style of deathcore is pretty niche and not for everyone, basically taking the groundwork laid by The Acacia Strain and like fellow UK act Black Tongue, making it even heavier and slower, and emphasizing down-tuned, loping breakdowns over anything else. It’s simple, yet effective, lacking some of the nuances of label mates Humanity’s Last Breath, but a little more creativity than both Distant EPs and delivers a massive, crumbling 5 songs of sheer unadulterated heft.

I mean opener “Cardinal Sin” is easily one of the young year’s stupidly heaviest tracks, (maybe even heavier than “Stigmata” from the debut) even with its ridiculous pig grunts here and there. And the next 4 tracks are no slouches either. Whether it’s the dense crawl of “Left to Drown”, lumbering “My Mind, My Prison” or the EP’s longest track, “Everblack” with its slightly more experimental, moodier parts and slower pacing.

“The Harrowing” ends the EP as you’d expect; straight up, bruising down tempo devastation, and the Eps second heaviest number after the opening track showing that Bound In Fear might be the kings of the block when it comes to this divisive style.

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