Emerging triumphantly from the dense traffic of quality Metal releases in 2024 was the third full length album by New Jersey’s esteemed Replicant. Making their debut with 2019’s ‘Negative Life’, a record that showed an uncut gem of claustrophobic and ugly demented extreme Metal that inhabited a putrid sound space somewhere between Avant Death and heroin overdose worthy Sludge Metal. Whilst still a somewhat primitive effort by later comparison the band detonated their way out of artistic incubation with the release of their extraordinary sophomore dosage, 2021’s ‘Malignant Reality’. A truly excellent record where the true abstractly beautiful sound of this band was at last birthed. ‘Malignant Reality’ featured better production and a massively matured songwriting approach where the spacious use of near Blackgaze passages allowed the band to paint an effective backdrop prior to those terrorising moments where the sleep paralysis demon of aggressive musical lunacy would arrive.
Three years later we arrived at album number three and with some lofty expectations in tow, it is safe to say that with ‘Infinite Mortality’ the band did not disappoint. The album still displays the same breathing room from a production standpoint that made Malignant Reality such a monolith but this time around on ‘Infinite Mortality’ the instrumental spotlight is being more aggressively shone onto the use of rhythmic dissonant grove instead of moments of pure ambience. This is, in many respects, Replicant at their most direct. Opener ‘Acid Mirror’ centres around a central descending guitar motif whilst the entire band swirls around it like a vomitous musical typhoon. There seems to be a pattern within the album where one instrument will shine for a second or two with a lonely embellishment before the rest of the instrumentation is sucked into a violent replication of that same phrase. Of particular note is Michael Gonçalves vocals; his signature, near falsetto screeches are sounding more sinister and agonised than ever before and his distinctive vocal approach is one of the major factors that sets this band apart from their contemporaries.
‘Infinite Mortality’ is a different and more musically structured beast when compared to Malignant Reality and it is a very welcome addition to the Replicant catalogue. With their third album here, the band has secured their place amongst the company of other weird upper echelon stars within the Extreme Metal avant-garde such as Slimelord and Tzompantli.
Transcending Obscurity Records
- Country: India
- Style: Black Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Youtube
