Normally when I hear the term "OSDM" (-aka- old school death metal, for those of you who haven't yet left the vault) I keep it movin'. Most of the bands that comprise that particular faction of death metal, I've found, haven't the slightest fucking clue how to exercise their ambitions. Sure, we all know from their praise of vinyl, old school Finnish death metal and all things John Mac & Cheese, that they're like "totally into it", but when it comes to actually manifesting all of that praise and adoration into their own creations, they have a tendency of coming up painfully short.
Canada's Chthe'ilist are anomalous in the sense that they actually manage to get the whole "OSDM" worship down pat while simultaneously conjuring fourth something new and exciting (though in reality, the music they create sounds ancient and decrepit, which is a fucking great thing, I might add). The overall sound is quite rotten. This could easily be mistaken for something released 20 or so years ago. However, a healthy portion of this demo betrays the band's Canadian origins as this has a tendency to be quite frantic ala Cremation, Mitochondrian, Revenge, etc. Hell, even Cryptopsy or early Kataklysm, for that matter. Make no mistake though, this is ugly. There is no desire to over process and neuter anything here, folks. The dense riffage found herein is the type that brings fourth mental images of ancient towers and sinister landscapes. The type of atmosphere that only masters of the genre are capable of rendering.
The vocals are many and plentiful ranging from Demilich style frog-croaks to the hateful shout of Seance.
I am quite impressed by this release and am very much looking forward to future material. Along with Disma, Coffin Texts and Corpsessed, Chthe'ilist has given me hope amidst a sea of aimless and misinformed cyber-zombies intent on taking a dump, recording it and calling it "old school death metal".
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