While most of the so-called ‘modern’ death metal scene reduces everything down to a calculated and soulless exercise in pinning interchangeable riffs to a ProTools grid, bands like Ageless Oblivion are worth their weight in toxic gold.
Expanding on the boundary-shunning invention of their remarkable Temples Of Transcendent Evolution debut, these young Brits have fulfilled their early promise and delivered a second album that bulges with ingenuity, subversion and gleeful nastiness.
Precise and destructive when in flat-out attack mode on opener Wolf’s Head, they’re also masters of the kind of slow-burning wall of sound beloved of Neurosis and their post-metal acolytes. The difference here is that everything is executed with DM’s snarling aggression whacked violently into the red, so even something as excruciatingly morbid as 12-minute fever dream Where Wasps Now Nest connects like a knuckle duster to the eye.
With a surfeit of riffs, atmosphere and intelligence, Ageless Oblivion are one of the most fascinating and exciting metal bands in the UK right now.
