Another wicked discovery here! Embrional are an intense death metal band from Gliwice, Poland and have been laying down some misanthropic, Satanic slabs of evil since their first demo in 2006. ‘The Devil Inside’ is their second full length and follows in the deep footsteps of 2012’s ‘Absolutely Anti Human Behaviours’. Well that album may have had a bizarre title but it certainly did what it said on the tin and here with this second offering to Old Nick. Embrional carry on at full speed with their Hate Eternal meets Vader before getting battered to death by Immolation death metal rumpus.
Now unlike say, the last Unleashed or Thanatos records – (both amazing – buy or die), Embrional experiment much more with timing and progression. The songs aren’t what I’d call immediately catchy…at all. There’s loads going on and it’s not a metal album for the car journey to work. Rather one to blast out with the curtains drawn at home, candles lit, incense burning before you indulge some goat worship or whatever takes your fancy.
This is a big step up for the band from their first album, and the musicianship on display is immense. The thought put into these songs is apparent and every track has an eerie, almost dream like quality amongst the brutal rhythms and riffage.
After the creepy intro ‘Evil’s Mucus’ (gotta be my song title of the year so far) crashes out and you get a good idea of the dark spiral Embrional are going to kick you down. The vocals are a very strong blend of both black and death metal really stand out. In fact there are plenty of pinches of black metal liberally dished out throughout the record which, again, maintains your interest and never seems out of place.
‘Funeral March’ my stand out track along with the super complex ‘In Darkness’ which has some dazzling bass and guitar work going on and needs multiple listens to get a grip of. As with many of the songs there’s a load going on and it can sometimes be difficult to take it all in. Not in a challenging way but in a manner that makes you want to hit play again as soon as the disc stops spinning.
This is definitely one of the more interesting death metal releases this year and well worth shelling out for.
(8.5/10 Mark Eve)
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