Finland’s Desecresy return with their 6th album and second as a one man act after Jarno Nurmi, vocals, departed after the Stoic Death album. Tommi Grönqvist continues along playing all instruments and singing and Towards Nebulae continues with the depressive, atmospheric and bulldozer heaviness we have come to expect from this great act.

Opening with “The Gate”, this is one of the strongest songs the band has ever opened with.  The killer guitar riff is not without melody, early on, until it gets into the bludgeoning steamrolling heaviness and the isolated guitar riff around the one minute mark is killer as the song picks up speed and then gets right into that creepy guitar melody, from the beginning.  One of the most memorable riffs for 2019.  At the 2.35 mark the isolated riff gets into more atmospheric passages with the plodding bass and snare drums and then right into a massive guitar riff, which is as thick and dense as an early Spring fog.  The opening guitar riff closes out the tune and one of the best songs Desecresy has ever written.

“Fringes of Existence” is another highlight.  Terrific opening guitar melodies, with a lot of atmosphere and then right into a fast part, not blasting, but fast death thrashy beat, then back into the awesome guitar riff and then right back into the fast part.  You don’t know which end is up and the song has crazy time changes and the atmospheric guitar moments mixed in with the ferocious heaviness is something Desecresy does exceptionally well.  They do it to a point that I have yet to find a band that combines such weird emotive, atmospheric guitar melodies mixed in with bludgeoning heaviness.  “The Damned Expedition” has such a punishing ending to it with the guitars and plodding nature of the song.  “Forms in Echos” ends the 11 song 37 minute album and it’s mostly and instrumental. There are some vocal lines in the beginning, but by and large the song is devoid of vocals and I’m just not a fan of closing out an album with instrumentals, but Desecresy can pull it off somehow and keep my attention.  It actually is befitting to end the album with the song and the melodies and riffs are super emotive and strong.

So there you have it.  Desecresy’s Towards Nebulae is a strong album, on par with the last album, The Mortal Horizon, in terms of song structures however the production on Towards Nebulae destroys the past album and overall the songs are more fleshed out this time around.  It could have something to do with Tommi now a little more confident as operating the band himself, because this album slays from beginning to end.  Little hiccup of the packaging.  The physical cd while it looks different than the physical cd of The Mortal Horizon on the Towards Nebulae cd rather than the album name printed on it, a fuck up happened and The Mortal Horizon album name is printed on it.  Dave, from Xtreem, explained it to me.  Something like this can have a tendency, as it did me, create unnecessary consumer confusion.

The booklet is simple with the lyrics in there and Tommi once again does the artwork.  The continuance of the blue color shading from the prior album permeates this cover.  This is a real creepy and weird cover and again the use of light shading is phenomenal and the cover fits Desecresy’s sound perfectly.  Towards Nebulae is one of the strongest albums Desecresy has released and this needs to be in your collection, now.

[Visit the band's website]

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