HORRENDOUS
HORRENDOUS “Ontological Mysterium”
By Dr. Abner Mality
HORRENDOUS have now been around long enough that they can’t be considered new kids on the block anymore. But with every new album, the metal press waxes rhapsodic over them as if they are as fresh as a spring daisy blooming in the graveyard. I’ve never really bought into the hype, but with this album, things start to coalesce and come together more than before. Plus, I think the album is coming out at just the right time.
Death metal is kind of a big deal again, with newer bands leading the way. Most favor a primitive, knuckle-dragging style, like FROZEN SOUL and 200 STAB WOUNDS. HORRENDOUS takes a different approach and that helps make “Ontological Mysterium” stand out amongst the current pack. This is a more “cerebral”, almost jazz inspired kind of death, taking a lot of influence from ATHEIST, CYNIC and the latter half of DEATH’s career. The songs here twist and writhe, never content with beating a simple riff into the ground. There’s a wide variety of vocal approaches and guitar solos are everywhere, coming at you at the most unexpected times. Is it pretentious? Yeah, kinda, but at this stage of the game, a little pretension is not gonna kill the beast. Best of all, the songs maintain their heaviness...which hasn’t always been the case on past HORRENDOUS works.
After the weirdness of “The Blaze”, “Chrysopoeia” (The Archaeology of Dawn) gives us the album’s longest track and one that walks a labyrinth of shifting structure and ATHEISTic guitar noodling. Every track here has got its own vibe, from the jazz fusion flavored “Aurora Neotenica” which will please CYNIC nerds to the crushing rage of “Cult of Shaad-oah”, which gets my nod as best track on the album and one of the best HORRENDOUS tracks ever. “Exeg(en)esis” is so weird it’s great while the title track definitely brings the progressive side of DEATH to mind. It all ends with “The Death Knell Ringeth”, which almost a death metal MEGADETH with some of Damian Herring’s harshest vocals.
The constant unpredictability keeps the album entertaining without losing the all-important metallic element. I still think HORRENDOUS are not the all-encompassing saviors some think, but “Ontological Mysterium” is their best album by far.