Bloodsoaked Necrovoid - Expelled into the Unknown Depths of the Unfathomable

Angry Metal Guy 70

Pushed face down into the muck and scum, suffocating in fetid waste as an invincible force presses inexorably down upon you, knowing you can’t fight it nor escape. This is the lovely sensation Bloodsoaked Necrovoid strive to deliver with their uber murky sub-basement level take on raw doom death. Hailing from sunny Costa Rica, these two deranged denizens of dark crawlspaces have nothing but bad intentions in store for the hapless listener on their crushing Expelled into the Unknown Depths of the Unfathomable debut. The long-form, drawn out torture sessions unleashed here are everything death doom should be, but often is not, referencing greats like Incantation, diSEMBOWELMENT, rising stars Ossuarium, and past innovators like Winter as they deliver a visceral, unpleasant experience you’ll find repellant yet strangely alluring. Call it a musical Anglerfish of sorts, it’s not for the feint of heart though, that’s for shit sure.

The album plays out like an interactive Lovecraftian horror film,¹ with “Dispossessed in an Asphyxiating Darkness” opening to eerie, unsettling riffs that reverberate off the moist walls of the hideous caverns you’re lost within as otherworldly chanting and terrifying death growls roil the very air you breathe. You’ll feel the dreadful menace lurking around every darkened corner, and when the unholy beast finally heaves its writhing, insanity-inducing mass into view 4 minutes in, it’s even more horrific than you feared. This stuff is truly disgusting and nasty, like 500 pounds of tuna salad left out in the July heat, now sentient and bearing a grudge. Run, but with every step its awful low tide stench grows closer. The atmosphere is risible and raw, primal and primitive, like the earliest days of Sepultura dialed up to the nth degree. “Perverted Astral Intoxication for a Death Incarnation”² features spine-squishing doom segments with creepy ambient touches giving false hope in between harrowing riffs. The death croaks are more noise than actual vocals but they’re oppressive and noxious, so they fit right in. The deft hand with which this dynamic duo handle the transitions between massive doom and blistering death onslaughts is quite impressive. The two elements play off each other well, depriving the listener of predictability.

One of the album’s best moments occurs when “Viciously Consumed by the Unfolding Unknown” kicks into a murderous, unstoppable death chug at 3:10 that feels like it could flatten a steel-reinforced concrete bunker without so much as slowing. When it isn’t steamrolling mankind into the ashbin of history it makes excellent use of tricks and tropes made famous by Hellhammer and Winter while coating them all with the latest weaponized viral monstrosity. This thing plays out like a long, lurid journey through Hell and it’s the mood of the whole that matters more than individual tracks. There isn’t much in the way of variation from cut to cut, though each has a big standout moment that slaps you in the gob with an oily tendril. The huge, epic riffs that lead you into “Existential Dismemberment by a Transcendental Nothingness” are especially gripping, and closer “Traversing the Threshold of a Treacherous Depraved Absolute” steps up the doom game significantly. At 40:49, the album is about as long as this kind of thing can be while remaining engaging, and any more would be less. Could some songs be shorter and tighter? Yes. It all holds together in a slithering, shambling way though.

Federico Gutierrez (ex-Corpse Garden) handles bass, guitar and vocals, and that makes him the big man on campus here. I’m fairly certain none of his vocals are actual words, but his unceasing growls, groans and chants are ghastly and gripping. It’s his guitar-work however that makes the Bloodsoaked Necrovoid experience so enthralling. There are a ton of loathsome, subdermal riff lines and anxiety-inducing dissonant phrasing running through every track and he’s a master at creating a suffocating mood. Jose Maria Arrea handles drums and synths, going hard on the former and thankfully light on the latter. Though this is the kind of album you put on to make people leave a party, the pair show some surprising subtly at times, knowing when to go all in and when to step back, switching styles as the songs require.

Expelled into the Unknown Depths of the Unfathomable is a gateway into a way worse place than 2020, and sometimes that kind of voyage provides us with some much needed perspective. This is the ideal soundtrack to play as you are slowly devoured by maggots, if you’re in the market for that.³ It’s definitely one of the more gruesome listens I’ve had this year, and I mean that as a positive. A warning though: once you stare into this abyss, the abyss may do far worse than just stare back.



Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Iron Bonehead
Website: bloodsoakednecrovoid.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: November 6th, 2020

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