WormedThis is a band who have played live alongside Goratory and Vomit Remnants. To be honest that tells me more than being told that their sci-fi technical death metal style is the framework for their “atmospheric” songs. The songs could be about anything but I’ll accept without question that they have something to do with the cosmos, with extra-terrestrial outros on most tracks and with titles like “Aglyptian Codex Cyborgisation”, in which there is even a little cyborgian squiggle mid-track.

The fact is that like Goratory and Vomit Remnants, this brutal death metal is about energy. It’s about machine-gun fire, it’s about irregularity, it’s about intensity and it’s about incomprehensive lyrics churned out by a man sounding like he’s hissing through a bottle. The technicality level is high and all in all it’s an uplifting experience. Now and again there’s a break and there’s even a sinister passage running between “The Singularitarianism” and “Eukaryotic Hex Swarm”, which appropriately ends with the buzzing of the said swarm. As always with these bands, the drummer more than earns his corn with his non-stop action and frenetic activity, but always prepared to stop triggering and ready to signal the next passage of chugging and rapid-fire brutality. After the explosive journey of “A-Omega Point”, there’s a brief cosmic journey with “578893308161” before we return to the more traditional technical battleground of “Zeroth Energy Graviton”. Stopping, starting but never leaving time for thought, “Zeroth Energy Graviton” piledrives its way through the brutal fields. The guitar work leaves suggestive hints, and I think it’s this, together with the energy and subtle changes of mood and pace, which make this album so appealing. Wormed do it one last time with “Molecular Winds”, a longer track which gives more exposure to the band’s instrumental skills, and this thirty five minute whirlwind of an album goes away.

“Krighsu”, which is the Spaniards’ third album, has great movement and variation overriding the sheer firepower at the centre of it. It’s a pulsating album with lots of interest value.

(8/10 Andrew Doherty)

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