With five years under their belt as an active entity, Portland, Oregon’s Death/Doom trio Besotten have unveiled their first full-length studio album. This record, which is entitled ‘Eye of the Monolithcrypt’ sees the band embarking upon a journey through a swampy bioluminescent underworld that blends enchantment, gloomy magic, massive guitar tones and a cerebrally charged abstract tonality.
Besotten’s approach to conjuring the imagery of the record’s underworld revolves around mercurial compositions that often feel loosely constructed and unpredictable. This eschewing of conventional song-structures works in favour of the immersive experience that is offered by these tracks where you are frequently left feeling as though you are hopelessly lost within the album’s namesake Monolithcrypt. The occasional usage of effects added to the (mostly) unintelligible vocals bolsters this disorientating atmosphere. Despite its abstract nature, the record still manages to punch with a serious rhythmic velocity courtesy of the excellent placement of the bass guitar within the overall mix. Besotten’s heaviness will steamroll you in a similar fashion to being caught under the tank treads of an M4 Sherman whilst receiving a flurry of tooth-dislodging punches to the face from Rocky Balboa.
The guitar tones feature a spattering of grindy distortion and they consume a considerable portion of the mix. The enormous size of the guitars, in tandem with the general pacing of the riffs on this album, reminds me of the Mexican outfit Reverence To Paroxysm. I enjoy how drummer Andy Osborn’s contributions remain fairly straightforward but are still packed with detail and each component of his kit sounds powerful whilst satisfyingly complimenting the guitar tones as they homogenise into a thrilling rattling percussive whole. When the band isn’t moving mountains during their more deliberately paced sections, their doomier side allows powerful soundwaves of sustained distortion to assault you, such as the slower crush of the middle section on ‘Storming the Cerebral Citadel’.
My favourite compositional indulgences on the album arrive by way of the two longer-form tracks ‘Bathed in Insufferable Light’ and ‘Bloodcairn’. I find these lengthier cuts seem to play into the trio’s impressive strength for harsh world-building whilst allowing me to become deeply buried within the unpredictable explorations of Besotten’s writing. ‘Bloodcairn’ is particularly notable for its various phases, which range from memorable linear core riffs that are seethingly heavy to more lucid sections of whispering chanted vocalisations, mystical clean guitars and melodically emotive leads. The band squeezes a great amount of detail into these tracks, which grants their extended runtimes permission to really wow you. After a handful of listens to the record, you start to realise that Besotten creates heavily engrossing and powerful music in a style that is more commonly regarded for its simplistic brain dead riff-driven assaults and ultra depraved themes.
Considering its reasonably brisk run time of just over thirty-six minutes, ‘Eye of the Monolithcrypt’ manages to explore a great many different sounds and sonic textures. This range of audible abrasiveness grants the listener the ability to slowly digest all that the album has to offer over the course of a great many listens. When the band are riffing in full groove-focused strength, their percussive core is particularly thrilling, but when the slowed guitars are also uppercutting their way through the mix in a sustained power chord-driven rhythm, the richness of the sharp distortion is particularly infectious. This gut-vibrating forcefulness is a factor that seems to be pretty even across the instrumental board, the bass distortion blends so well with the guitars and drums that when experienced as a whole alongside the monstrous gurgling vocal oration Besotten sounds absolutely pulverising.
This year has seen so much quality already in the realms of terrorising Death Doom; albums from Fossilization, Foetorem, Temple of Void and Astriferous. Not to mention that stomach acid bathing split tape from Corpus Offal and Undergang. In light of those releases, I can very highly recommend ‘Eye of the Monolithcrypt’ to anyone who has enjoyed those offerings. This is among the very best of the crop for disgusting Death/Doom albums to drop in 2026. The record is multifaceted and well-composed and the sheer size of the audible imagery on this album practically begs you to play it at an ear bleed-inducing volume. So, I suggest you crank up your stereo and bask in the watchful gaze of this crypt’s giant all-seeing eye.
