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PERISHING "Malicious Acropolis Unveiled"
PERISHING "Malicious Acropolis Unveiled"
By Dr. Abner Mality
Costa Rica is described as a tropical paradise, which makes it a strange home for the suffocating death/doom of PERISHING. "Malicious Acropolis Unveiled" sounds more like it should come from medieval ruins somewhere in Romania.
Death-doom is a style that can try your patience, even when it's well done. PERISHING gets almost everything right about it, but too much of a good thing is what keeps this from "classic status". I have to say, the opening duo of "Autolysis I: Imago Fluidus Macula" and "Autolysis II:Fatum Cursed By Nature" is virtually flawless cryptic doom with oozing cavernous riffs and vocals to match. If you've ever heard ASPHYX's classic "Initiation Into the Ossuary", you will be familiar with what PERISHING dishes out here. It's like being entombed miles beneath the Earth.
"Castle of the Leached Body" plods on in similar fashion, but there's a cool speed up to a crushing mid-paced chug at the tail end that gives it a sting. "Las Ruinas del Palacio" shifts gears somewhat and now the name of DISEMBOWELMENT can be invoked. Twangy minor key guitar plucks in the style of the cult Australian band proliferate in the first half of the song; then the second half brings the flattering power of INCANTATION-style death-doom and another neat burst of speed.
Alas, from there, PERISHING fall victim to the monotony of the funeral doom style. Few are the bands that can escape this trap. Both "Osedax" and "Acropolis of Malignancy" just seem to drag on and on and on, leading to a disappointing climax for the album. If these two songs could have been edited or even excised completely, it would have made this a better album.
Nevertheless, PERISHING understand the fundamentals of grisly death-doom and should be a name to watch in this field of endeavor.
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