Man, it never ceases to amaze me how much Italian Death Metal Bands love the Floridian style of death metal.  Not that is by any means a bad thing by any means and it most certainly has been a busy year for Italian Death Metal with Hour of Penance releasing Cast a First Stone on Prosthetic records earlier this year.  Hideous Divinity are next up and are definitely springing forwarded with their third full length Adveniens.I have been a fan of Hideous Divinity since their debut full length Obeisance Rising which ironically enough came out the same year Hour of Penance released Sedition. I find it to be an interesting parallel that both Hideous Divinity and Hour of Penance have had this friendly rivalry in their country to see who can play the style of death metal in the most brutal and unrelenting way.

I must say that over the last three records Hideous Divinity has crushed Hour of Penance. That trend continues with Adveniens which opens up with a sample that I will not spoil but all I will say is that if you are a fan of David Cronenberg movies you will get the reference.  “Ages Die!” The opener of this beast of an album wastes no time in building excellent build up with fantastic drum work and guitar fretboard shuffling. Much like Hour of Penance, Hideous Divinity seem to really like Hate Eternal. “Sub Specie Aeternitatis” further demonstrates Hideous Divinity’s love of Erik Rutan’s riff phrasing.  The intro riff sounds like it could have come right off of I Monarch.  Again, I do not think that is a bad thing at all. Enrico Di Lorenzo’s vocals are spot on throughout this textbook forty eight minute death metal treat.  Enrico Schettino’s leadwork has come a long ways over the last three Hideous Divinity releases and his improvements in note selection and use of harmony throughout are really on point.

Guilio Gelati’s drum performance on this is one of the best I have heard of any death metal band this year. Not only is his blast beat variety present throughout but he manages to also keep the number of fills he does in each tune really interesting and I really cannot say that there is any point during this album I found myself wanting to change tracks. “Passages” is probably the longest and most diverse track. Opening up with a unique clean guitar passage and building up to close to eight minutes this tune builds up fantastically into the clean-up hitter “Angels of Revolution” which has been growing and growing on me the more I listen to this record.  I think this one is my favorite track. There is a blast groove section in this particular tune that gets me absolutely amped. This a great album for being on a treadmill in the gym because it is so up tempo.

One thing that I like that Hideous Divinity has done the last two albums is end the album with a cover.  On their last album Cobra Verde the closed with Ripping Corpse’s “The Last and Only Son”. Switching things up a bit in terms of country and style of death metal band Hideous chose to close Adveniens with a cover of Sinister’s “Embodiment of Chaos” from their 1995 Nuclear Blast Records release Hate. It is a very unique arrangement and definitely sounds like Hideous Divinity.  Continued props to these guys for their appreciation of other artists within the genre.  If these guys keep putting albums out like this it won’t be long before American bands are covering them. Two thumbs way up for this. Head over to Unique Leader Records and get this one ordered because I have a feeling it will be in the rotations of many at the end of the month.

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