Lavadome isn’t the most production label out there, but when they do release something, its usually pretty darn top notch (i.e. Epoch, Zealotry, Destroying Divinity, Heaving Earth, Chaos Inception). And that continues with the third full length album from Australia’s Eskhaton, Omegalitheos, a splendidly  and typically murky and muddy delivery of Australian death metal chaos.

In the grand tradition of country mates Portal, Ignivomous, Golgothan Remains and Miserist as well as Dodecahedron, Altarage, Mitochondrion, Corpsessed, Ulcerate, and Nightmarer, Eskhaton is a down tuned, slithering, discordant slurry of noise that rarely coheres into anything remotely structured. The 14 song (some are atmospheric interludes), 52 minute descent into madness is a exercise in depraved, slimy dissonance that’s as unsettling as it is chaotic.

With song titles like “Relic of Mictlantecuhtli”, “Culthulhunatic”, “Blasphemartyr”, “Elu Azag” and “Kimah Kalu Ultu Ulla”, the oozing, crawling Lovecraftian, occult stench is rife, but don’t come here looking for standout riffs or moments to recall, as the album just careens, squeals and growls from the abyss with a sickly, deviant guitar tone and nightmarish howls and growls that are palpably nauseating. While the majority of the material is the careening, indecipherable blasts, a few lumbering, monstrous crawls break up the chaos such as “Abyss  Unknown” or “Subvoidal”, which further cement the album’s foul miasma.

There’s been some fine murky death metal this year from the likes of Nightmarer, Tatanhammer, Eroded, Burial Invocation and such and even with the upcoming monster from Corpsessed, Omegalitheos stands as arguably the murkiest of 2018s death metal releases and yet another example of quality over quantity for Lavadome productions.

 

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments