In the death metal world at least, the act of turning the clock back hasn’t been a means of seeking refuge from a bewildering modern world so much as an effort to tap back into the wild, inchoate energy of its most formative years.
ATAUD [7] are well placed for that mission: London-based but all South American-born, their clattering, thrash-spiked DM channels the primitive, DIY spirit of their native scene, and a hunger that, in true spiritual style, transcends its means.
Their dynamics constantly warped by ill intent, VORUM [7] pursue their quarry through maze-y, pollution-smeared atmospheres, riffs spinning and splaying like torture devices before shifting axis with sickening lurches. It’s an immersive set that spells out the occult ethos with diligent zeal. Emissaries from the Uppsala scene, and emitting a stench that might make Watain blanch, DEGIAL [8] have a kvlt cache of their own, drawing a packed, voracious crowd, and their squirming, hyperactive ativism takes on an added potency live. The sudden, consciousness-yanking shifts of tempo are just aspects of an overall sense of disorientation and delirium as the chalk and kohl-splattered Swedes scrabble to excavate infernal energies from every possible angle. Degial might be dragging death metal to the depths, but it’s where its most vital essence still rages.
