DEMONOMANCY - Poisoned Atonement
Release date - Feb 23/18 (Invictus Productions)
Out of the gate, Italian heavies Demonomancy bludgeon with opener ‘Fiery Herald Unbound’. Mixing intense grind within its black/death core, along with gurgle/talk vox, they sure as hell get your attention but quick. The use of intense speed with downtuned guitars, along with a rumbling bass sound that hits the gut, sends a message that these guys aren’t pussy footing around. Subsequent tracks find the band introducing slower passages within the chaos adding to the overall heavier-than-thou vibe. Punishing to the extreme, the swirling cacophony will go over well with those who listen to extreme music exclusively.
On the downside, the tracks tend to overstay their welcome (all exceed the five-minute mark excluding the short intro) and a sense of ‘I’ve heard this before’ starts setting in over the course of the 40-minute sophomore full length. This would have been a stunning EP if this were scaled down to three tracks (‘The Last Hymn of Eschaton’, ‘Nefarious Spawn of Methodical Cha’ and the aforementioned opening track proper). The other five tracks, while by no means terrible, really don’t bring anything else to the table that the other three tracks don’t do in superior fashion. So, a little bit of a mixed message here. Demonomancy certainly has a base sound that is worthy of being built-off of, but some tightening in the song writing department, as well as adding a few more twists to their sound, will go a long way. Almost there though.
[6.5]