Album Review: Angelic Desolation - Orchestrionic Abortion
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
Sometimes it’s really hard to know where to start with these reviews, especially when your senses have just been so brutally overloaded with a mixture of so much rage, inhuman rhythms and merciless riffs. People of metal, let me introduce to you Angelic Desolation, and if you haven’t heard of them before, then get ready to be abused and battered!
This new album called ‘Orchestrionic Abortion’ is a gore fuelled assault, as the band indulge themselves by amalgamating grind, thrash and death metal, and with new bassist Leonard White introducing his 5-string bass, their sound has been cranked up beyond 11, and the Denver quartet have created songs that are punishing.
Opening up with ‘Brutus McManus’ it begins with an intense riff before the growling vocals of Jay Medina take over, with such wonderful lyrics as “Scream, call his name, he is rage and insane” and “Brutus McManus will puke us” it played at an intense speed, eerie dissonance and thundering bass drum double kicks, which drive the huge sound. They follow this with ‘Shake The Baby’, which has a sublime guttural scream at the beginning, before launching into one hell of a song.
‘Pterrordactyl Mann’ again begins with another delightfully ferocious scream, but has a sense of progressive chaos through off beat rhythms and non-standard time signatures, with guitarist Matt Markle producing some killer riffs before they launch into ‘Dic Tater’ with the opening line of “Are you Broccoli? – Death” as they spit out a plethora of foods, each accompanied by the word Death at the end of the question, it’s bloody mad but so much fun to listen to.
My favourite song is up next, ‘Los Pacos de Diablo de La Traco de Paco’ or ‘Pacos Satanic Taco Truck’, and has an eerie, satanic beginning to it, before the crushing guitar sound takes over, with drummer Maxwell Stark, hammering out some killer beats. The guitar work seems more technical on this one, whilst the overall intensity is still as powerful from the band.
The next two songs ‘Barbaric Destroyer’ and ‘Aids Chimp Lab Attack’ are both brutal and unforgiving and continue the overall onslaught that this heavy sound is meant to give, and they round off the album with a blistering cover of Cattle Decapitation’s ‘Forced Gender Reassignment’.
It’s certainly not one for the feint hearted, but if you like your music brutally fast and intense, then you’ll love it!
