Faceless Burial – Speciation

With their debut album, ‘Grotesque Miscreation’ from 2017 and its follow-up EP that appeared a year later, the Australian Faceless Burial shook off their early-stage slightly chaotic and above all blackened edge. Instead they opted for a technical brand of Death Metal that comes with various twists, tempo changes, yet still tries to keep things dark with a somewhat muffled and dense atmosphere. But, their increasingly technicality clearly strays them away from the Old School Death Metal sound, seemingly pursuing different musical territories.

When listening to ‘Speciation’ and compare it to the band’s 2015 demo, it seems like a lightyear has passed. The somewhat inept sort of Blackened Death Metal sounds so primitive if you realise that it is the same band that delivered this album, only five years later. Comparisons to both the debut album and the ‘Multiversal Abbatoir’-EP are easier to draw, but it is unmistakable that this sophomore album is again a huge step up. The technical aspect of the music has even been further expanded, yet it was done so at the expense of that dark atmosphere, which is largely gone. Gone too is that damp production, ‘Speciation’ sounds way more open and crisp, giving enough space for each individual instrument to shine – and that’s no luxury, because you get quite a lot to digest. It basically sounds like something that balances between Canadian Gorguts and Finnish Death Metal jugglers Demilich, add a little Incantation for that last little bit of dark vibes. You’ll get the fast and twisted riffs of Gorguts and all those freaky Demilich stuff that makes your mind goes boom.

If you are into the very most technical territories of Death Metal, don’t mind a new drum rhythm every 20 or so seconds and if you can withstand all kinds of peculiarities in fast little riffs and leads… than ‘Speciation’ is just right up your alley. If you are looking for dark and dense sounding Death Metal or anything that sounds remotely Old School, I suggest to look for something else; we might have another tip for you on our pages.