Man, what an album. Tokyo Death Doom band Heteropsy have delivered a brooding and dense work here with the group’s premiere full length album ‘Embalming’. It feels like a vivid glimpse into the mind of Frankenstein’s monster while it curses a lonesome existence. The songs bleed atmosphere with interesting riffs and compositions that are creative contributions to this whole ‘Slow Metal’ game. Like the classics of yore these guys really know how to use the clean guitar strategically such as on ‘Momento Mori’, which feels like a mirrored image to the blistering feedback assault bleeding through the speakers across the majority of the album.
Shredding solos on ‘The Dawning’ appear from out of the abyssal fog. The guitars when not chopping up these crunchy rhythms are firing off epic, noble leads that sing like an eagle’s call. Drums smash down like acid rain and the drummer has a crisp bouncy style. The production really shines on the ‘pop’ of the drums particularly the snare and cymbals. Slow and steady blasts are cut with fast old school Death Metal skank beats and steady pounding Doom variety drums. Vocals here are usually grunted mid/low yells and growls, they definitely suit the music well and are occasionally layered, adding dimension and range. Bass is usually throbbing like a migraine and yawning away under the influence of Morpheus, sitting in that lower medium end pocket of mix. Beefy and edgey tonality wise, a sharp thick blade like a machete in sonic form.
‘Methadone’ is a particularly pensive noisy reflective surface of a song, though generally I find ‘Embalming’ to be much less Drone influenced than past work such as ‘Inner Sanctum’ or ‘Asphyxia’, and features more epic melodic influences like they’ve been been listening to some Swedish material before writing this time around. ‘The Sodomizer’ has a swampy fever pitch to it, sludgey and mucky whereas ‘Asphyxia’ is like a descent into hell by being dragged down into a cavern tunnel by an imp then a motorcycle riff Swedeath.
The solos are really inspired and these guys are rockstars.
I love this album and I think they really found their sound here. The creepy artwork is also very evocative like the music it represents and the artist (who I can’t find the name of unfortunately!) did a fantastic job. Big stuff from these Japanese rockers let’s keep it up going forward and see where they take it!
‘Embalming’ is of my top picks of 2025 for sure and I’m sure it’s clear why after some time with it.
